


Kitten

by GretaOto



Series: Kitten [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cat, Fluff, M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-11 06:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3317765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaOto/pseuds/GretaOto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames adopts a cat. Arthur goes missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my very first fic ever! Thanks to earlgreytea68 for inspiring my new-found love of Inception. I have no beta and this has not been Brit-picked, so all errors are fully mine; constructive criticism is welcomed!
> 
> Also, this work has been fully outlined. I am posting the first chapter here to force me to finish writing the entire thing - I hate abandoned WIPs with a frustrated, burning passion - but no promises on an update timeline.

Eames was used to heading to ground after an extraction. It was purely logical, a way to avoid unwanted attention from invariably disgruntled marks. The extraction team would ride to the airport (or train station, or bus terminal) together, the point man would confirm payment with each member separately, and then they would scatter to the four winds, never to be heard from until the next job. The fact that Eames wouldn’t consider himself friends with most of his part-time coworkers was beside the point.

The departure ritual was one of Eames’s favorite part of working with Arthur (besides the flirting – Eames, the immaculate suits – Arthur, and the endearing condescension – Arthur to Eames). Always the same line, usually accompanied by a dimpled grin. “Your money will be in your account within 24 hours, Mr. Eames.” But never the same account. Eames couldn’t remember when it began, but the process had become something of a game between the forger and his point man (and just when had Eames started thinking of Arthur as _his_ point man?). Every job, every time, Arthur found a new and creative way of delivering the money. 

One time, Eames had set up a brand new Swiss bank account under a brand new alias, just 24 hours before the job wrapped up. Arthur found it. Eames was still impressed (and possibly a little worried) every time he thought about it. 

After one incredibly tedious job (which Eames had spent 90% of flirting outrageously with Arthur just to kill time), Arthur had deposited individual payments in to every single one of Eames’ accounts, alphabetically by last name, in increasing amounts that Eames eventually decoded as the Fibonacci sequence in base 8. He figured Arthur had been just as bored, and decided to take the exacting attention as a complement, even if a (not so) small part of him wished that Arthur’s boredom had manifested itself in… other ways.

Just as creative, although massively more frustrating, was the time Arthur intentionally deposited his (rather sizeable!) paycheck into an account which was under surveillance by the NSA. The sudden influx of untraceable cash naturally caused the NSA to immediately lock the account down, as well as bump the associated alias several notches up the “Most Wanted” list. Eames had been (and still was) rather pissed about that. (“You didn’t earn that one, Mr. Eames. You got lazy, and nearly cost us the job.” Just because Arthur was right didn’t mean he had to go and pull a dick move like that.)

On the latest job, which was admittedly a bit of a shit show, Arthur merely yelled “you know the drill!” across the terminal to Eames as they sprinted off in opposite directions to avoid the converging local police force. It seemed like every job lately had gone off the rails. Inception may have also been a shit show, but at least Ariadne knew how to construct proper Penrose staircases that didn’t collapse in the middle of an extraction like badly-folded origami. And if Eames never woke up with a somnacin-induced migraine from oops-I-misread-the-decimal-place-on-that-recipe chemists ever again, it would be too soon.

Thirty-seven hours, two burner phones, five plane flights, one bullet train, and three aliases later, Eames made it home to his London flat. His second phone – the one he never used on jobs and whose phone number not even Arthur had – had notified him of the deposit 36 hours ago, a new record for Arthur, although Eames docked points for reusing the account from the last job.

Exhausted and jet-lagged as he was, Eames almost stepped on the small bundle of grey and white fur huddled up on his doorstep against the drizzling London rain. A pitiful meow from the vicinity of his feet as Eames fumbled with his keys was all that distinguished the smoky fur from dusty concrete and leaden skies. The forger looked down, then reached over the cat to finish unlocking the door. Once his bags were safely in out of the rain, he knelt down to examine the sorry creature.

And what a sorry creature it was. Up close, what had appeared to be water was very clearly blood matting several patches of fur. There were numerous deep gashes, one clearly the bite from a larger animal, and at least two of which held embedded shards of glass. One leg was poking out of the cat’s tight curl, as if broken or dislocated. “What happened to you, darling?” murmured Eames, unbuttoning his jacket and removing the red-and-orange flannel shirt he had snagged passing through the Vancouver airport. “Did you go and jump out a window, or something?”

Eames knew of a veterinarian within three blocks who wouldn’t ask too many questions. (One of the many reasons he would never again house-sit for a neighbor, no matter how hot.) While Eames judged himself perfectly capable of stitching up another human being (and had done so for both himself and Arthur more times than he cared to recall, including under fire and with little more than hotel mini-bottles for both sterilization and pain relief), the small feline form seemed too delicate to risk it. Plus, judging by the pained whimpers the cat made while being wrapped in Eames’ shirt, he was afraid of more serious injuries.

There were no internal injuries, thankfully, and the leg was just badly bruised, but the various gashes required seventeen stiches, and the vet removed not two but six shards of glass from its (his, Eames was informed) side and paws. Eames was sent home with one rather drugged cat and a bottle of baby aspirin. Eames didn’t even like cats, normally. He was a dog person, the bigger the dog the better. But there was something about the cat’s dusky tuxedo, the way it looked at Eames with both pain and hope in its coffee-colored eyes, and good god he needed sleep. Right now. Forty-nine hours awake was clearly beginning to affect his better judgment. Besides, the cat would take a while to recover, so it’s not like he would be too much of a nuisance while Eames had to lay low. Although he would never admit it aloud, Eames even thought that a bit of company would be nice for once. Even if it was just a cat.


	2. Chapter 2

Well, kitten,” Eames mused, feeling a new man after 14 hours of sleep, a shower, and an entire pot of tea. “What am I to do with you?”

The cat lifted his head from a pillow on the sofa – one sacrificed from Eames’ own bed, since he couldn’t recall ever owning a throw pillow and couldn’t be bothered to dig out extra blankets from the linen closet – twitched an ear at Eames, and curled right back up.

“I don’t even know what to call you. How about…mmm… Armani? Zegna? Maybe Christian? That grey tuxedo you are wearing is truly something, darling, even Arthur would appreciate it.”

Another ear twitch. The cat didn’t even both to raise his head that time.

“Smokey, then? Tigger? Mittens?”

Each suggestion only earned Eames a narrow-eyed stare. The man was sure that, if it could, the cat would be rolling his eyes. He sat down on the sofa next to the cat.

“Something classier then, hmm? Copernicus? Dante? No, definitely Gatsby.”

Eames could have sworn the cat just raised an eyebrow at him. Even though cats don’t _have_ eyebrows.

“I suppose you must be quite the fighter, given the nature of your injuries. Maybe I could call you Shere Khan.” The little bared fangs lent some support for the choice, but Eames decided not to risk getting bit every time he tried to address his new housemate.

“Come on, kitten, work with me here.” The cat closed his eyes and let out a little purr. “Seriously? Kitten? _That’s_ the name you’re going to respond to?” The cat purred again, just a little bit, and butted his small head against Eames’ broad palm. “Even Arthur would find that name trite and unimaginative,” Eames sighed, gently stroking the silky fur, “but I suppose no one will ever know. It’s not like I can keep you forever, not with my life and my job.”

\---

That first afternoon, all Eames could find for the cat to eat was a can of tuna. Actually, that wasn’t quite accurate. The only food left in the house for either of them was one can of tuna, two cans of black beans, and some questionable condiments in the door of the refrigerator. He split the tuna with Kitten, microwaved his half with some of the black beans and a bit of feta (after he had scraped most of the mold off), and resolved to go grocery shopping immediately.

Eames came back with a variety of fresh staples for himself and one of every kind of cat food he could find in three different stores for Kitten. None of the options looked especially appetizing, but then again, Eames wasn’t a cat. Maybe “Gravy Lovers Beef Feast” or “Meaty Bits” or, god forbid, “Friskies Wet Loaf” would appeal to the feline palate.

While Eames spent the day checking in with his various (legitimate and not-so-legitimate) contacts, investigating the fall-out from the catastrophe he left behind (wishing, not for the first time, that he could just clone Arthur and use copies of him to staff his entire team from here on out), Kitten spent the entire time sleeping. He got up once to use the litterbox and drink a bit of water, meowing pitifully from his nest on the couch until Eames walked over and gently lowered him to the floor, careful not to jar the badly bruised back leg.

When the bowl of Fancy Feast went untouched that night, Eames chalked it up to his lack of mobility. He ended up sharing bits of popcorn with Kitten that night over a _Die Another Day_ rerun.

One of the things Eames secretly loved to do was cook. It reminded him of painting, blending and juxtaposing colors (flavors) and textures to make something entirely new, a delight to the eyes (nose, tongue). He never had much opportunity to cook with or for others, hadn’t had that kind of relationship with another person in a long time. He missed it sometimes, the easy camaraderie in the kitchen, dancing around each other, movements perfectly in sync, coordinating without a word. Yusuf cooked, sometimes, but his was a purely functional discipline; he saved his creativity for the lab. Ariadne, Eames suspected, would stop at pizza and pot noodles and tubs of Ben and Jerry. He found himself wondering what Arthur would be like in the kitchen (in the bedroom, in the shower, stop that thought right there), if he would be perfected recipes and exacting measurements, _coq a vin_ and _boeuf bourguignon_ and perfect macaroons, or if he would cook by feel, daring flambés and cupboard-clearing stir frys; that he would be remarkable was a given. 

The rice boiled over while he was lost in thought. He did manage to get the salmon off the grill in time, just cooked through, barely more than seared, perfection.

Eames took his dinner on the sofa the next night. Kitten had spent all day lounging and lazing, and Eames was oddly reluctant to leave him alone for very long. A small bowl of dry food (less mess if spilled) was balanced on the cushions next to Kitten, in case he showed any appetite.

The sudden crash and clatter was a dissonance, harsh against the soft bouncy strains of _Sous le ciel de Paris_. Eames jerked his head up from his book, plate abandoned on the coffee table and reaching for the Glock under the cushions in a single, swift move, eyes scanning the door and windows for threats. A stainless steel bowl rolled to a stop on the hardwood floor; Kitten’s perch was empty but for a few grey hairs that stood out against the navy pillowcase. 

The sudden thud of four paws rebounding off his hunched back, followed by a rattle of crockery against wood quickly revealed the culprit. Kitten was standing on the coffee table, a bite of salmon and the entire skin hanging from his mouth, looking somewhat perplexed. The rest of the salmon had neatly peeled away from the skin and was upside down on the table at his feet. Eames bit back a laugh as he dropped the clip and removed the spare round from the chamber, flicking the safety back on.

“Nice try, Kitten. But that’s my dinner. You have your own.”

Kitten’s protest was muffled by the fish stopping up his mouth, but his disagreement was plain.

“I’m serious, darling. People food can’t be good for cats. The popcorn last night was a one-off, because you are injured and adorable.”

Kitten sat, tail-tip lashing, eyes wide and guileless, salmon firmly secured between tiny fangs. Eames slumped. It would never do for his reputation as a disreputable rogue if a petite piece of fluff could have him so quickly caving.

“Fine, but at least let me get the bones out for you. I don’t want you hurting yourself any more than you probably did, pulling a stunt like that.” He held out his hand, and Kitten neatly deposited the food into his palm.

Eames took the rest of his food back into the kitchen to guard against further thievery. He de-skinned and boned the salmon, crumbling it into a new bowl.

“The things I do for you, pet,” he sighed, setting both dishes side-by-side on the coffee table. Kitten preened, whiskers bristling in satisfaction, nudging Eames’ knee between smug bites. Eames ran his fingers down the ridge of Kitten’s spine and ribs, reveling in the downy fur while checking the stiches for fresh blood. He was relieved and pleasantly surprised to find none.

“I’ll forgive you this time, because this salmon is bloody delicious, but you really do need to eat your own food, my lovely. It’s got the right balance of nutrients, or something.”

Two days later, Eames discovered what appeared to be the remains of the uneaten Giblets in Liver Gravy from the night before. In his favorite trainers. With his feet. At 5:30 in the morning. Even odds on it being dumped in there versus regurgitated; Eames had thought it smelled like vomit to begin with, and despite his displeasure, couldn’t exactly blame Kitten for disliking the stuff. 

He didn’t make it out for a run after all, and instead spent the morning cleaning soiled insoles and grumbling into his coffee (vile stuff, worse with sugar, all Arthur’s fault, but sometimes tea didn’t have enough kick) about mysteriously absent felines. Kitten reappeared, looking entirely too innocent, while Eames was out giving the rest of the cat food to his next door neighbor – he considered it partial payback for the time he had almost killed Jeremy’s cats by forgetting to feed them for two weeks. 

After some quick internet sleuthing and one call to the local ask-no-questions vet, a prominent note went on the fridge: ‘ABSOLUTELY NO alcohol, avocado, caffeine, chives, chocolate, garlic, grapes, macadamia nuts, ONIONS, raisins, raw fish, tomatoes, xylitol’. Eames wasn’t entirely sure what the last one was, but petMD.com assured him it was a bad thing. He found that he didn’t mind adjusting his favorite recipes (the “no onions” rule was surprisingly difficult!) and making a second tiny plate of food. Kitten’s presence on the dinner table was almost good as real company. 

\--

Kitten hated cat toys as much as he hated cat food. Eames tried feathered wands, scratching posts, climbing towers, treat balls, motorized stuffed animals, and catnip mice. All were ignored with the same level of disdain, except for the climbing tower, which the velveteen dictator quickly formed a liking to, all the better to view his usurped domain. 

“Does your royal catness require any further services from your humble servant?” Eames teased, stroking Kitten under his feathery chin.

The catnip mouse reappeared two days later, floating in the toilet bowl, head missing and stuffing removed.

\---

Sometimes, Eames would reach out to caress those silken ears and receive a forbidding paw pressed against his hand, claws extended in delicate warning. Other times, Kitten would follow Eames to the couch, jump on his lap, and allow himself to be rubbed all over, from nose to belly to tail, while Eames lounged watching bad telly. Eames had the sneaking suspicion that Kitten just liked the sound of his voice, and obliged with a running stream of commentary and criticism over bizarre Korean soaps and terrible daytime talk show hosts. If he stopped talking or touching for too long, Kitten would snap back to himself like a man released from hypnotism, jumping down in a flash, darting into the other room, a bullet train in miniature.

_Cats._ Eames shook his head in disbelief. _Such strange creatures._

\--

Two weeks later, Eames took his new companion back to the vet to get the stitches removed. She smiled but refrained from commenting on the new moniker, and simply congratulated Eames on how healthy Kitten looked. All his cuts and bites had healed well, and the fur that was trimmed to do the repairs had begun to regrow.

Back home, as soon as Eames set Kitten down, he disappeared into the bedroom in a streak of silver. Eames followed just long enough to see a pair of wide eyes glowing back at him from under the bed, then went to start on lunch with a shrug. 

He made a second, deconstructed ‘sandwich’ for the cat – crumbled whole wheat bread, a pile of shredded deli meat, a few leaves of spinach, and some thin slices of cheddar. His own sandwich included a lot more mustard. 

Kitten didn’t join him for lunch, but as he’d been acting strange the entire appointment with the vet, Eames left him alone. Doubtless the strange people, harsh smells, and barking dogs brought back bad associations with his last trip. Eames understood waking nightmares like that.

When Kitten didn’t reappear by dinner Eames began to worry. Before retiring to bed he searched the small house. In the last several days he had come to learn all of Kitten’s favorite hiding spots. All of them were empty. He retraced his steps, checking even the most unlikely corners, whistling and clicking softly.

Eventually, Eames gave up. Sleep that night was fleeting and restless. He worried about his small companion, more than he would ever admit.

\--

The next day, the house was quiet, too quiet. Eames had to admit that, even without speech, Kitten was an enthralling and engaging companion, filling the space with his very presence. He spent time wandering the neighborhood and nearby parks, and combed the house again and again until he began to feel the definition of insane. Somehow, unexpectedly, uninvited, Kitten had slotted into his life, filling a void he didn’t realize was there until it suddenly emptied again. 

\--

Three days later, Kitten still hadn’t returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tuna-black beans-feta abomination is something my husband voluntarily eats. I’m still not sure if he actually likes it, or if it is some sort of passive-aggressive statement that I need to go grocery shopping again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who have left kudos and comments! Every single one completely makes my day. You guys really are the best, and encourage me to move this forward faster than I could do on my own.

Eames was miserable. 

He would never admit to being miserable, especially over a sodding _cat_ , but there he was. The house was too empty. His food (definitely not overflowing with onions and garlic now, just because he could goddammit) tasted off. An empty cat tree mocked him from the far corner of the living room. The cat tree almost ended up on Jeremy’s front step with a note, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to discard the carpeted monstrosity.

When Eames found himself poring through the camera roll on his phone, trying to the perfect photo of Kitten for a “LOST CAT” poster – which he had already spent more time on than several small forgeries – he decided it had gone far enough, thank you very much.

The half-finished poster was deleted. Eames stopped scrolling through his phone’s photo albums and started parsing his address book instead.

Three weeks was long enough to stay under the radar. It was time to find a new job, a new distraction, Lagos or Mumbai or Bangkok, somewhere that was never quiet. He would call Yusuf, spend some time in the heat of Mombasa; it would be a welcome change from the leaden skies of London in midwinter. 

It wasn’t like he couldn’t have kept a pet for long anyway, not with his life choices. Animals were a bloody pain to smuggle through airport security, and a liability in a firefight.

\--

The day was sunny, skies washed clean following two days of downpour, a novelty after the monotony of grey. Eames never ceased to wonder at how vivid blue the skies seemed when the clouds deigned to part. He had swum in the cerulean waves of the Mediterranean, stolen sapphires of unparalleled luster, spent weeks duplicating the iridescence of the Morpho butterfly in his dreams (the mark was a retired entomologist – the forger had had nightmares of prismatic eyes and knifelike genitalia for months afterwards), but nothing compared to the clean sky in a rare reprieve from winter’s gloom.

Eames was bent over his laptop and a stack of files, trying to decide where to go next. Where was safe to go next. There wasn’t much chatter from the last job any more, but he should still stay far away from former Soviet Bloc countries for the next few months, if possible.

Without consent from his higher brain functions, Eames’ hand crept across the sofa cushions, searching for slender ears or a soft belly. When his hand took longer than expected to respond to a “turn pages” command, he realized what he had been doing.

With a near silent groan, Eames dropped his head into his hands, fingers running through hair that probably needed to get reacquainted with a pair of shears before he would be presentable again. 

Jakarta could be nice, he certainly owed Mateo a large favor. Or Johannesburg. Spend some time brushing up on his Afrikaans. Anika always made sure to find him the most curious projects. 

Eames allowed himself one last heavy, defeated sigh before straightening up, fingers settling into place on the slim keyboard.

He froze. A change in the pattern of light across the floor caught his eye over top of the laptop screen, a subtle shadow against the honeyed wooden boards. A curl of silver fur nestled in the center of the sunlight, chin resting on neatly crossed paws. 

_Kitten,_ Eames breathed, fingers reflexively reaching for the ever-present poker chip in his pocket. He had been so silent, or Eames so lost in his own head, that he reappeared as if he had never been gone.

In that moment, Eames was inspired. He hadn’t painted anything original in years, decades, but the scene before him was too perfectly composed and his hands were compelled by their own arcane dictates to flip over the nearest file – Luxembourg, Dar es Salaam, Abidjan, it didn’t matter – and begin sketching the composition, the angles, noting the highlights and shadows, the play of straight and curved lines elegant enough to make an architect weep.

The oil tubes were buried in a dusty box Eames wasn’t even sure was in London, and it took even longer to find a blank canvas in the proper size. He spared two minutes to text each of his pending opportunities a simple “sorry, I got a better offer, maybe next time” (because after all, it didn’t do to burn too many bridges in a community as small as dreamshare when one could simply be polite) before powering off his phone.

The first strokes of sable on canvas were broad and straight, crafting the shape and tone of the entire work in honey and gold, the warmth of sunlight on oak, white window frame turned flaxen with reflected light, cream walls in shadow.

He blocked in the curves of Kitten’s gentle repose next, the arc of silver fur a focal point in the framework of linear beams and shadows. Gossamer whiskers a contrast to sturdy beams. The upward curl of eyes closed in contented sleep. Tail wrapped just so around his back paws, the tip unexpectedly arching away, like a pinky held out from a delicate china cup. Neat white paws and chest, clean cut and symmetrical peeking out from a delicate silver tuxedo.

Eames worked for minutes or hours, until his neck was stiff, his eyes were blurry – from concentration or not blinking, or maybe the paint fumes – and the sunbeam had long since travelled across the floor, up the opposite wall, and disappeared. He had just about succeeded in mixing the perfect shade of chestnut for the flooring, and all the outlines were in place, a ghost of a vision in precious metal tones.

Kitten chose that moment to uncoil, yawning and stretching luxuriously in the way that only those with feline blood can do. 

Eames was startled from his reverie but grateful for the reprieve, rubbing at the back of his neck with one paint-daubed hand while doing his best to imitate the cat’s graceful backbend. Kitten sauntered over to his stool, twined around Eames’ ankles in one loop, two, then continued on towards the small kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, blinking at the shirtless, smocked painter as if to say “aren’t you going to come make me food?” 

The sheer amount of imperiousness that the cat could command in a single look reminded Eames of a certain brown-eyed point man.

\--

Eames found himself startling awake, hand reaching for the concealed Sig even before his brain finished acknowledging the change from dream to reality. Too many years working in dreamshare, too many close calls, had honed his subconscious to a hair-trigger. He lay perfectly still, breathing regulated to forge the appearance of sleep, slitted eyes scanning the darkened room for anything out of ordinary. 

His gaze fell on a sliver of light seeping through the cracked-open bedroom door. The click of the latch must have been what woke him; Eames always slept with the door closed, a momentary barrier to any potential intruders.

As he watched, the door eased open further, spilling the glow from the hallway nightlight in a widening arc across the foot of his covers. 

A small, questioning “mrow?” from the doorway broke the tension. Eames let out the breath he had been holding, a silent sigh of relief, although he still couldn’t shake the lingering tension. He must not have fully latched the door that night, mind awash with relief at Kitten’s sudden reappearance.

The meow was repeated, more emphatic, less questioning, as the door continued to swing ajar. 

A pale shadow detached from the rest of the darkness, bounding the short distance across the room and up on to the bed in near-invisible grace. Stepping daintily over Eames’ covered thighs, the slim figure settled down on top of the covers on the far side of Eames, not quite touching his shoulder but close enough to feel the gentle weight of another body settling on to the bed.

Kitten curled into a lazy circle, extending a single paw to rest gently on top of Eames’ non-gun hand. Eames returned the gun to its hiding place, flicking the safety back on in practiced habit, sliding his other hand free of the possessive paw and running a single finger along a silky ear in wonderment. He returned his hand to its original placement, curled gently over Kitten’s paw like one might hold the hand of a lover or a child, delicately, lovingly.

Said paw was quickly withdrawn, then placed back on top of Eames’ broad palm. Eames was amused. He recalled, hazy with the distance of time and memory, a similar game he used to play as a child, stacking hands with a friend, always trying to end up on top. He pulled his hand free, replacing it on top of the paw, just to see what would happen. 

Kitten repeated his former motion, but this time with a hint of bared claws. Not enough to hurt, not intending any damage, but enough to make the point. _I’m on top. This is mine._

Eames huffed a laugh, loud in the stillness, and gave in. He drifted off to the gentle rumble of light purring, strangely warmed by that single, tiny point of contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I'm on tumblr, http://glasswing-butterfly.tumblr.com/


	4. Chapter 4

After Kitten’s return, Eames began leaving his bedroom door cracked open at night.

Sometimes Kitten followed him in, twining between his feet while Eames stripped for bed. The cat usually curled up on the side of the bed, barely touching with a paw or a tail (although, if Eames rolled away, Kitten would move with him, reestablishing that thread of connection). He was almost always gone by morning.

Other times, the cat would show up in the middle of the night. Eames would come half awake at the sudden pressure on his chest, confirm that the satisfied, purring lump was indeed Kitten, and go back to sleep. For some reason, he usually dreamed of trains those nights.

Once, memorably, Eames jolted awake up from a nightmare about being buried alive. Kitten had rolled across his neck, the unexpected weight from that slim frame and long fur pressed against his nose and mouth combining to cut off his air in a rather unpleasant manner. (And if Eames ejected him from the bedroom rather harshly that night, he apologized with bacon in the morning.)

\--

Eames was in the small bathroom down the hall, head bent over the sink, trying to wash stray flecks of paint from his hands and arms before fixing dinner. A loud crash from echoed the front room, followed by a scrambling clatter, and then silence. 

The forger carefully retrieved his hidden bathroom gun, sliding the Glock free from its custom case mounted under the toilet tank lid. ( _That’s a terrible hiding place for a weapon,_ Arthur had scoffed. _You’ll make too much noise retrieving it, the echo of clattering porcelain will give your position away in a heartbeat._ Eames had just scoffed right back, flipping the lid to display his custom sound-dampening rubber seals.) Weapon in hand, he slid noiselessly down the hallway. 

Eames had hated ballet classes as a child, rebelled every day for five years before his mother finally gave up, but at times like this he was grateful for the training, the ability to balance his considerable bulk on surprisingly quiet and nimble feet. And, the extra flexibility he had never lost occasionally came in useful.

His eyes scan the front room in practiced sweeps, darting from open window drapes to the still-bolted front door, checking all possible hiding places for intruders. And then rechecking, because it never hurt to be careful when there were still rumors of a substantial price on your head in parts of Eastern Europe. 

Eventually, his gaze stilled on the tableau in the center of the room. Dropping all pretense of stealth, Eames threw back his head and laughed. A clearly embarrassed cat was picking himself up from underneath an overturned palette, grey fur liberally streaked and splotched with shades of ochre and amber. Milky solvent puddled from an overturned glass filled with soaking brushes, threatening to soak paws already stained crimson. A suspicious blush marring a curious nose matched a suspect smudge on the freshly-painted chestnut highlights in the bottom corner of the painting.

He could see it clearly, as if he had been watching: Kitten had jumped on the small table next to the easel, clearly intent on examining this new addition to his domain, and had stepped on the precariously balanced palette, knocking it and the rest of the table contents to the floor. Eames was just glad he hadn’t taken the painting over with him.

“Oh, darling, you know what they say about curiosity and cats” Eames murmured, flicking the safety back on the Glock, dropping the magazine and clearing the chamber in a fluid, practiced sequence. He pocketed the magazine and shoved the gun into the back of his sweats, striding forward towards his rather bedraggled housemate.

Kitten sat uncomfortably amid the debris, eyeing and sniffing dubiously at one chromatic paw, as if debating whether to begin licking his fur clean. Eames swept him up, hands tenderly feeling for injuries beneath the coat of paint. His fingers moved gently along the delicate frame.

“Now, now, pet, you mustn’t do that. The paint will make you sick.” Kitten turned his mournful brown eyes up to Eames’ face, then back down to his matted fur. Eames sighed.

“Let me help you, my sweet. I can wash you, but I know how cats hate water, so please, darling, keep your claws sheathed and teeth to yourself, hmm?” 

Eames kept up a soothing ramble as he retraced his steps to the bathroom, one hand firmly encasing Kitten’s small chest, the other tracing lines up and down ticklish ears. He paused long enough to snag the half-full bottle of turpentine and a rag on the way.

It didn’t take too long to daub all the paint splatters off the pale fur. Kitten bared his teeth at the strong solvent fumes, but sat still until it was done, tolerating the cleaning with only a twitching tail tip to indicate his great displeasure. When Eames turned to dispose of the rag in the laundry hamper, Kitten leaped off the counter. He made it halfway to the door before Eames scooped him up and returned him to the empty sink.

“Not quite done yet, poppet” Eames soothed, returning Kitten to the sink. He turned the faucet on slowly, testing the water with a finger until it warmed to his satisfaction. “The turpentine will do your lovely fur no favors. And it could make you quite ill. I just got you back, I don’t want to lose you again.”

Something in his chest clenched at the thought of losing the cat he had become so fond of so quickly. Eames ignored the sensation. He was good at ignoring such feelings; he had too much practice ignoring them around Arthur. Instead, he focused on the rhythm of a soapy cloth on fur, gently cleaning then rinsing away the soap, trying not to soak Kitten’s fur too much in the process.

Eventually, man and beast were both clean once again. Eames wrapped Kitten’s shivering form in the fluffiest towel he could find, scrubbing his fur towards dryness before depositing him, towel and all, on the sofa.

The turpentine had already done a number on the floor’s finish, so Eames settled for mopping up the worst of the spill, resetting brushes and palette on his work table and making a mental note to refinish the floor someday when he got the chance. 

Dinner was a quick affair, a tuna pasta salad Eames had grown oddly fond of during an ill-advised stint in the Southern US. Afterwards, he settled in for a night of bad telly and good company, enjoying the pleasant rumble of Kitten’s purr as his damp fur slowly dried against the warmth of Eames’ bare chest.

\--

It took Eames another two weeks to finish the painting. He found himself talking to Kitten while he worked, telling stories about people he knew, places he’d been, things he’d done.

“This one time, I was in Rio for a job. Crap job, but worth the trip, because that’s when I met Arthur. We weren’t working together at the time, I just walked past him on the beach one day, but I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I spent an extra two months there after the job wrapped up, walking the beaches by day, learning capoeira at night, hoping I would run in to him again, get his name. Turned out the bastard had left two days after we crossed paths.”

Brush on canvas, fluid strokes matching fluid words. Eames focused intently on the play of light around Kitten’s ears, sunbeams through long guard hairs forming an opalescent halo.

“Did you know that Arthur is a secret rock god? We got drunk one night in Jakarta, after we had pulled off a successful if rather harrowing extraction, and I convinced him to karaoke Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’. Best night of my life.”

If most of Eames’ stories circled back to Arthur, well, that was only to be expected. After all, they worked together frequently. Eames simply liked working with the best.

“Arthur has the most astounding face I have ever watched. It is my secret mission to make him smile, truly smile, at least once a day. You know how to tell he’s pleased with something, Kitten? The secret is in the dimples.” Eames gestured with his paintbrush, tracing the outline of two parentheses in the air. “First, the dimples appear. Oh, he’ll try to hide his smile, force his lips into a pinched, solemn line, but the dimples, they cannot be repressed. They remind me of your tail, actually, giving away your every mood while the rest of you stays perfectly serene.” Said tail swished once, twice, then stilled again. “Oh but once he gives in, that grin completely takes over his face. His eyes disappear from the outside in as his smile grows larger. It is a wonder to behold.”

Okay, all of Eames’ stories centered on Arthur. Perhaps because those were the stories Eames couldn’t tell anyone, thoughts he had never admitted, even to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for “Arthur is a rock god” goes to [ this masterpiece](http://archiveofourown.org/works/973191/chapters/1913261) by laiqualaurelote. And to this video of JGL singing Lady Gaga.
> 
> Eames’ obsession with Arthur’s dimples is drawn from chapter 34 of earlgreytea68’s touching and hilarious Next Big Thing.
> 
> If you want to see my mental picture of Kitten, pop on over to my tumblr, and say hi!


	5. Chapter 5

A soon as the paint was dry and the canvas hung in the living room, reality called.

Well, an old acquaintance called, with a job offer. Close enough. The mark was straightforward, a legal secretary, no chance of militarization. Her closest family was her twin sister; that’s where the job got interesting. 

Eames had never forged a twin before. He recalled a set of brothers from his primary school days. They had been uncannily close, to the point where many people suspected they had some sort of telepathy. Completely identical at first glance. (And second.) It took Eames three months to be able to tell them apart reliably, but once he did, he couldn’t figure out how he had ever confused them in the first place.

Eames couldn’t say no. It was a fascinating opportunity, the pay was surprisingly good, and he really did owe Ariana a favor for that one time outside of Kabul. There was just one problem.

It was in Seattle.

Eames looked down at Kitten and sighed. There was only one solution here. 

He had no choice.

\--

Forging the requisite health certificate and rabies vaccination papers was absurdly easy. No special papers, no embossed gold leaf seals, not even a watermark. Just a stack of black and white inkjet-printed pages and a signature that was little more than two bumps and a line. It took him three tries to get the signature right, and only because he was doing it with his non-dominant hand, on a lark.

Eames went out that afternoon and bought an airline-approved leash, harness, and collapsible pet carrier as well, just to be on the safe side.

\--

Of course, just because Eames _could_ legally (more or less) bring Kitten as carry-on didn’t mean he _would_. It was good practice, he reasoned. Airport security was much less uptight about a cat than they would be guns or explosives. Or a PASIV. All three of which Eames regularly flew with, but extra training never hurt anyone.

A trip to the local Oxfam yielded a coat that even Eames found garish but was just loose enough in all the right places to conceal anything without looking bulky. The waist even cinched tight using clever little drawstrings in the pockets. The mustard-and-mauve checkerboard pattern left a little to be desired, but Eames had found that sometimes it was easiest to hide in plain sight.

It took very little practice to find the perfect position for Kitten to hide inside the coat, wrapped around Eames’ waist like a soft (and warm) second skin. They passed through the metal detectors with a whistle and a cheery wave to the agents.

The second layer of security, located a bit further in the terminal, was more difficult. Body scanners (or optional frisking), located at the mouth of the US-bound terminal wing, with parallel x-ray machines for the bags. Neither option was exactly cat-friendly. _Bloody paranoid Americans and their bloody ridiculous security theater_ , Eames mentally grumbled, walking nonchalantly past.

It was the work of a moment for him to lift a security badge from a passing maintenance employee. 

Eames was glad to find his old shortcuts still intact. Three weeks spent slinging baggage around the tarmac as William Weatherford – Billy, to his mates – was an investment that still paid dividends. He made a mental note to brush up on current architect and security layouts at other major international hubs. Maybe he could get Arthur’s help with the research. If the next dreamscape were to be set inside an airport, he could even avoid owing Arthur a favor for the help, claiming all the research as necessary for the job.

At his gate, Eames sweet-talked the agent into upgrading him to first class while slipping the purloined badge under a stack of paperwork. The badge was sure to be deactivated as soon as it was reported missing, so there was no point in holding on to it.

Before boarding the aircraft, Eames took one last restroom break. In the privacy of a roomy handicapped stall, he offered Kitten a little bit of food and water before the long flight, then relocated the strangely silent and compliant cat into the top of his duffel. 

“You really are an odd duck, Kitten. But you’re quite wonderful for a cat,” Eames whispered, gently tickling Kitten under the chin. He left a small gap in the zipper, just enough for Kitten to breathe through.

On landing in LA, Eames used a second passport – this one for James Evenrod, American citizen, upstanding businessman, and Platinum-level frequent flier – and a drawling Texan accent to bypass the Customs lines with their agricultural sniffer dogs, straight on to the car rentals.

\--

Cobb had a nice house, Eames thought as he walked up the short driveway to the cute, white-trimmed front door. A little plainer than he had expected; he wondered if the choice was pre- or post-Mal. Post, Eames decided as he rang the bell, listening to the faint sounds of children laughing inside. 

The door swung open, wide and easy, as if the man standing there had never cracked a hotel door with the chain still on, one hand on the knob and the other on a weapon, a price on his head. Cobb’s face was calm, _happy_ , and Eames realized suddenly that he had never seen the former extractor grin like that, at peace with the world.

When Cobb recognized his guest, he changed, smile melting into an all-too-familiar squint, body tense and radiating suspicion.

“Eames.” His voice was flat, unpleasant.

“Cobb,” Eames acknowledged with a slight dip of his head.

“What are you doing here?” 

“I have a job,” Eames began.

“And I have my children. No.” Cobb stepped back, face already turned away, literally and metaphorically closing the door on his past.

“Wait, Cobb!” Eames jammed one foot into the door before it could latch. ”Dom,” (because he was now, he was _Dom_ , widowed father of two, probably expecting a playdate or a UPS driver, not _Cobb_ , ruthless, brilliant, architect and extractor, haunted and driven by the shade of his biggest mistake), “that’s not what I meant.”

The look on Dom’s face as he turned back was a blend of mistrust and confusion. _Explain yourself, then_ , it clearly stated. 

Eames ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed. He could feel his ears blush pink as he unzipped his coat.

“So, I have this job, see. And it’s in Seattle, which is close enough to California, at least when coming from London.” The words began to spill from him in a tumble, rushing to explain before his one chance ran out. “But I couldn’t leave him in London, don’t know or trust any of my neighbors, I guess I could have found a kennel, boarded him or something, but I didn’t think of that, and I can’t take him on the job, he’d be a liability, and. Well.”

He trailed off and gestured towards his chest. Kitten’s sleepy grey face peered from the vee of his zipper, gazing first at Dom’s now entirely puzzled expression, then twisting up to observe the spreading warmth on Eames’ face.

“I thought you and the kids might be able to watch him while I’m working?”

Dom’s expression was indecipherable even to Eames’ trained eye. It morphed rapidly through a series of emotions before settling on poorly-restrained amusement.

“Well that’s an entirely different offer Mr. Eames. Come on in, I’m sure the kids will be happy to see both of you.”

\--

“He’s _adorable_!” Phillipa cried, hands gentler than her voice as she tentatively stroked one white paw. “What’s his name, Mr. Eames?” James looked on, wide-eyed and silent.

“Um, ah, well.” Eames ducked his head, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand. “Kitten, his name is Kitten,” he admitted sheepishly.

At that admission, Dom’s amusement finally broke through its restraints. He threw back his head and laughed.

Eames turned to glare at him, although with no real heat. “Don’t mock me. It was an accidental naming. The little bas- little fellow won’t respond to anything else. Someone else must have named him before I found him.”

Phillipa turned her big blue eyes on her father, displaying the sincerity natural to small children who want something they know they can’t have. “Do we get to keep him?” she breathed.

“Ah, no, honey,” Dom replied, catching his breath, ruffling her messy curls, still chuckling. “We’re just watching him for a few days while Mr. Eames goes on a business trip.”

“Daddy, can I get a Kitten of my own then? Pretty please?” 

A lesser man would have caved immediately. Dom Cobb was no lesser man, but Eames could see his resolve waver. Doubtless Dom had spoiled his children since his return, trying to make up for a missing mother and two lost years. It would be a hard habit to break now.

“Pwease?” chimed in James, voice soft but determined.

Outside of the negotiations, Eames smiled gently. If he were a betting man (and oh, how he loved to gamble), he would lay money on Kitten having a furry playmate by the time he returned. 

“Thank you, Dom. I do apologize for the short notice. I sincerely hope it’s not too much of an imposition.” 

“It’s not a problem,” Dom replied firmly. “After all, I suppose I owe you one. Or two.”

Eames understood the tacit apology for what it was, an oblique reference to the chaos of the Fisher debacle, contrition for how it played out laced with steely certainty that he would have done it again in a heartbeat, as many times as necessary, until he made it home. After seeing the children, the house, the way relief and _joy_ suffused Dom’s entire being, Eames understood.

“Yeah, well, I’ll see you in a week or so then, yeah? I’ll keep in touch when I can. This one is pretty straightforward, should be as safe as they come.”

“Speaking of keeping in touch…” Dom was serious again, but now his solemnity was laced with concern. “When did you last hear from Arthur?”

“I actually worked a job with him about three weeks ago. Haven’t heard from him since, other than getting paid, but that’s normal. Why?” Eames was curious, but not overly troubled. He usually kept an eye on Arthur’s comings and goings, as much as he tracked any of his regular partners in dreamshare, but it wasn’t unusual for them to go months without seeing or talking to each other. And he had been somewhat occupied recently to spend much time tracking the man.

“And nothing unusual happened on the job? It’s just, he called me right before, said he would be working with you, and then nothing. Usually he calls me after, let’s me know he’s safe. And I don’t exactly have the connections or the freedom to go looking for him these days.” 

Eames was not aware of this habit. He mentally filed the gem away for later, under “Things Arthur Does That I Can Tease Him About”. It was a disappointingly short list. Geeking out over obscure German Nihilist philosophers, and mad karaoke air-guitar skills were so far the only two items on it. (Things like his surprisingly pleasant and raspy singing voice - a bit like a tenor Johnny Cash - his dimples, and his obsession with exquisitely tailored suits belonged on an _entirely_ different list altogether.)

“I’ll ask around,” Eames replied. 

It was probably nothing. Dom just worried. 

“Good bye now, children,” Eames called out, turning for the door. “Be nice to Kitten, you hear? I expect you to take good care of him for me. I want him spoiled rotten by the time I return.”

Then, turning to Dom again, he added “Arthur’s fine. He’s _Arthur_. I assure you, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”

But as he turned his rental back towards the airport, Eames couldn’t help but feel a niggling sense of doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve never flown through Heathrow. My mental image of the airport, with metal detectors early on and body scanners closer to the gates, is based off my experience at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Eh, artistic license. *does some hand waving*


	6. Chapter 6

Considering that Eames had only been given two photos to work from, his mistake was understandable. Sloppy and completely unlike him, but understandable.

The twins, Madison and Emily, not only lived together and left for the bus to work at the same time, but apparently they shared clothes as well. So when Madison left for work on Monday wearing Emily’s favorite green coat, he boarded the bus behind Madison – the mark – instead of Emily, the sister he was supposed to forge.

Madison swiped her bus pass, moving to the back while Eames fumbled with a handful of change. She had her nose buried in her Kindle by the time he neared; she paid no attention to him. Eames was dressed as your average West Coast young professional in pressed jeans and a blazer over a mint green Oxford (no tie, top two buttons left open), canvas messenger bag slung crossways over his body, two days of stubble dusting his jawline. He unfolded the morning’s paper and pretended to work on the crossword puzzle, letting his gaze wander while he ‘solved’ it as an excuse to watch and learn her. 

It wasn’t until he tailed her to (and then walked on past) the door of the law firm’s skyscraper office that he realized his mistake.

The fact that he had been worrying about Arthur all morning, so perhaps wasn’t paying as close attention as he should have been, was his own business, not something that should ever interfere with a job. 

Eames walked the half mile to Emily’s office building, pondering his error. He found a convenient coffee shop across the street from the entrance, and spent the morning catching up on research while waiting for his target to exit so he could follow her during her lunch break. 

A quick survey of Emily and Madison’s Facebook pages quickly pointed out their clothes-swapping habit, along with a plethora of details that were missing from his dossier. Eames spared a moment to sigh in exasperation at lazy point men, wishing once again to be working with Arthur. He spent the rest of the morning compiling the missing information and sending it on to the rest of his current team. 

\--

Eames was good at compartmentalizing. After all, he’d been doing it for years, locking away rogue feeling and stray thoughts, separating his carefully cultivated image as a shallow, uneducated, flirtatious lothario from all true interests and desires.

That night, back at his hotel room, Eames spent a little time looking for his missing point man. He sent out a few discreet questions to some of the more reliable and well-connected members of the dreamshare community, then locked his worry away.

He pulled out the – rather slim – file that the point man had provided and opened it. While he read, he fiddled absentmindedly with his totem, flipping the poker chip over and around his knuckles, rubbing his thumb over the familiar and well-worn ridges.

The details were sparse, little more than Ariana had told him over the phone. Two rival law firms, facing off in an upcoming case over corporate corruption and environmental scandal. The defense was nervous – rightfully so, from what Eames could read between the lines. Typically filthy big business, in all senses of the word, including rich. The company had hired an entire dreamshare team just to get the list of prosecution’s witnesses. (The defense attorneys appeared to be completely oblivious of their client’s shady dealings, but Eames judged that a little illegal extraction was far from the worst of their crimes.) They figured the senior administrative assistant would be both easier to snatch and less mentally defended than any of the attorneys.

Eames just wanted the job over quickly. He disliked having to work with less than the best.

\--

Tuesday morning found Eames back at the bus stop. He observed the two sisters over the top of his iPhone, making sure he knew which one to follow this time. He caught the gleam of the early sunlight reflecting off the tiny diamond nose stud Madison wore; despite hours spent studying Facebook the day before, that was still the simplest way for him to tell the twins apart.

He was so engrossed in watching Emily – noticing how her face was slightly rounder, shoulders subtly more slender, posture a little less confident – that Madison’s voice startled him. 

“Hey, Hi, um. Sorry, I don’t normally do this. But I noticed you on my bus yesterday, you looked a little lost, are you new in town? By the way, I love your shirt, most guys can’t pull off that shade of pink, but it looks great on you.”

Her words flowed over him in a wash of sound. Eames just blinked, a little startled and more than a little mortified to be spotted by a mark so quickly. But the con man had plenty of improvisation experience, topside as well as in dreams. He mentally shrugged and switched tactics; clearly “observe from afar” wasn’t working, so he might as well go all in. He turned towards the young woman, plastering on his most charming smile.

“Oh, hello. Yes, I’m in town for a conference, managed to catch the wrong bus yesterday. Most irritating.” Eames played up his accent, just to be on the safe side. American women always loved the accent.

“And ta, about the shirt,” he added, looking down at himself and smiling shyly, “It’s one of my favorites.”

(The salmon colored Oxford, with its subtle orange stripes and white detailing around the collar and cuffs had been picked out for a different con. Arthur’s _”Your outfit is less appalling than normal today, Mr. Eames. Did you get dressed in the dark?”_ was practically glowing praise. Eames tried not to think too hard about the fact that the shirt became one of his regulars after that.)

Madison stepped a little closer, clearly pleased. “So, did you find your way yesterday, or can I help you find the right bus this time?”

Eames was just planning on following Emily onto the bus; the city’s transit system was woefully inadequate, and the official website even more appalling, so he had given up on trying to plan any sort of route. At least he now knew a few major landmarks, enough to improvise.

“Erm, actually, if you don’t mind, a little help would be lovely. My conference is at the Seattle Center, and I thought they meant the center of Seattle, so I ended up in the middle of downtown yesterday. Took me a bloody long time to get that straightened out, almost missed my first meeting.” He pulled a wry expression, mouth twisting up in feigned embarrassment.

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Madison visibly brightened. “Hey Emily, come over here!” She beckoned to her sister. “My sister works at the Gates Foundation, that’s practically across the street from where you want to go. You can just ride with her!”

Emily joined them, shoving her Kindle into an outside pocket of her laptop bag and nervously straightening her jacket. 

“What are you volunteering me for now, Madison?”

The fond exasperation in her voice hinted at the rich dynamic of their relationship. Eames was all of a sudden very glad that his cover had been blown. He was gleaning a wealth of information from this close interaction.

“I thought you might be able to show-“ 

Madison paused, and turned back towards Eames. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

Eames leaned towards Emily, offering his hand and a charming grin. 

“Lovely to meet you. The name’s Jack. I’m in town for a conference, and managed to catch the wrong bus yesterday. You sister thought you could show me the way, as you work near my stop?”

Emily’s smile was much more tentative than her sister’s, but more genuine. She was clearly entranced by this Charming English Gentleman version of Eames.

“Okay, I can, I guess,” Emily responded. She was clearly hesitant to allow a stranger to follow her, but seemed open to making an exception for a handsome stranger. Eames subtly relaxed his body language, conveying friendliness and harmlessness.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eames spotted Madison throwing her sister a wink and a nod, sisterly shorthand for _go for it, girl!_

The three looked up as a bus pulled into the bay, marked “41 Downtown” on its digital readerboard.

“That’s my bus,” Madison apologized, tossing her twin one last wink and joining the boarding line.

Emily sighed at her sister’s departing back, then shrugged and turned back to face Eames.

“So, since my sister has so awkwardly abandoned me, where are you trying to go?”

“Something called the Seattle Center,” Eames responded. “I think we’re supposed to meet at a music museum today?”

“Oh, you mean the EMP,” Emily clarified, clarifying exactly nothing. “That’s right across the street from my building.”

Another bus pulled into the station, 17 following the departing 41.

“Come with me.” Emily beckoned, a mix of resignation and amusement coloring her voice as she walked towards the opening doors. “This is ours.”

After they boarded, Emily seemed disinclined to chat, taking a seat in the very back where she could read her book in peace. Eames respected her space, choosing one of the side-facing seats, just far enough away to not crowd but still close enough to watch. 

It was a quiet 20 minute ride, peaceful despite the steadily growing mob of commuters that join them, and Eames was able to gather a few more observations before their fellow passengers obscured his view.

When they reached their destination, Emily paused in front of Eames’ seat. “This is your stop,” she offered. “Follow me, I’ll show you where you need to go.”

Eames was careful to walk all the way to the museum – the Experience Music Project, he looked it up during the ride – mindful that he might be observed. 

It was a nonsensical, hideous, mesmerizing structure, odd bulges and awkward lines painted in a clash of color blocks. One entire portion was painted a mirrored gold. Eames decided he would have to return with Arthur and Ariadne, just to see the look of cultivated horror and carefully concealed fascination cross Arthur’s face. Eames suspected it would be a similar expression as when he wore his loudest shirts. It was a look he never failed to cherish. Ariadne would probably go off in raptures about the architectural genius and sweeping emotion of the design. The entire spectacle would be utterly delightful.

Once he was sure that Emily had made it inside her office, Eames hopped the next bus back. He spent the rest of the day building his forge. He opted to skip the bus ride “home” that night, regretting the missed opportunity for observation but realizing that he had to be much more careful now that he could be recognized. At least the morning’s conversation had been productive.

\--

Eames granted himself a few minutes that night to search for Arthur. All of his contacts had come back; all were negative. Apparently no one had heard from Arthur since the last job they worked together, if not earlier.

Over the years, Eames had ferreted out a large number of Arthur’s various aliases. He had even helped forge a few of the passports and identity documents. The aliases were generally categorized into “commonly used” (which were more fleshed out, had associated credit cards, addresses, and bank accounts, but often had warrants or were flagged in various countries) and “escape route” (which were slimmer but cleaner, never used for wrongdoing, to ensure clean passage across borders). There was no activity on any of them, in any of the databases he could access or hack into. 

As he drifted off to sleep that night, Eames mentally reviewed every move, every conversation from that last job. It had ended messily, yes, but they hadn’t been sold out. There was no reason Arthur should be hiding that far underground.

\--

The next morning, Eames waved genially at Madison and Emily as he walked up to the bus stop, cup of Starbucks in one hand. (Terrible coffee, their tea was no better, but it was a good way to blend in.) Emily elbowed her sister, leaning in to whisper and gesture furtively.

Eames stood a few paces away and behind them, not wanting to seem pushy or suspicious, and buried his nose in his phone like roughly 90% of the other commuters. Undaunted, Madison strolled over to him with an affected nonchalance.

“Jack, hi again! This is probably presumptuous of me, but I was wondering if you’re busy tonight? I thought with your conference, you might not know anyone in town, and might not have anything to occupy your evenings, and I was wondering if you would be interested in joining Emily and me and a few friends for trivia night at the bar?” Her speech is a little rushed, clearly rehearsed.

Eames paused before responding, weighing his options. On one hand, the opportunity of close-quarters observations of both sisters together would make his job easier. On the other hand, no matter how safe the job seemed, it was always a bad idea to get so close to a mark. You never wanted them to remember or recognize you.

 _What would Arthur do?_ he thought.

"They always ask questions about British celebrities. You could be our ace in the hole!” Eames thought she might have winked at him.

Ignoring the mental admonitions of his imaginary point man, Eames made an impulsive decision. His team, while competent, was incredibly dull company, and his hotel room seemed sterile and lonely without the playful, bouncing presence of Kitten, whom he had quickly come to adore.

Thinking of Kitten, Eames let a smile break across his face. “That sounds lovely! What time does trivia start, and how do I find this bar you speak of?”

Madison’s answering smile was slightly mischievous, and her gaze darted quickly to her sister as she answered, “Oh, that’s easy. We’re all meeting straight after work. If you get out of your conference early enough, you can hook up with Emily and ride the bus with her.”

Emily, who was standing just close enough to listen in, blushed slightly and nodded. Madison’s subtle attempts at matchmaking suddenly became blindingly obvious to Eames.

The fact that the thought _I’m taken_ crossed his mind, rather than _sorry, you’re not my type_ caught him by surprise. Normally a little extra flirting wouldn’t both him. Hell, he’d seduced plenty of people – men and women – in past cons. But something about it just felt wrong this time.

He shook off the nagging sense that something was off, and threw all caution to the wind, sitting down next to Emily for the ride into town.

And if he happened to pepper his questions about trivia night and commentary on London with side comments about his ‘boyfriend’ and ‘partner’, well that was nobody’s business but his own.

\--

Trivia night was… surprisingly fun. 

The bar turned out to be a British-style football pub called the Market Arms, located in a curiously Norwegian-influenced neighborhood north of downtown. Eames and Emily arrived last. Eames offered to get the next round as Emily split off through the crowd towards the table where Madison was flagging them down enthusiastically.

Balancing a pitcher of ale in one hand and a local IPA in the other (Black Crow or Black Raven, or something like that; the bartender had recommended it), Eames wedged himself into the center of the table, directly across from Emily. Madison was seated to his left, and she did quick introductions around the table, raising her voice to be heard above the excited hubbub of the pre-trivia crowd.

Across from Madison was her roommate Heather, blond, round face, clearly an artist based on her bold eyeshadow and the splashes of paint around her fingernails. Emily was in the center, and next to her was the only other man at the table. He was introduced as Mark; his wife, Brielle, was across the table, to Eames’ right.

“Brielle used to live with us. She was our fourth roommate, before Mark stole her from us,” was Madison’s teasing introduction.

Eames found himself watching the couple, their comfortable happiness with each other, the way their hands always found each other after letting go to drink or gesture. He was oddly reminded of Kitten, of the paw game at night. He mused on the way they gravitated around each other, like twin stars orbiting each other, neither one a subservient planet to the other, equals.

The last thought made him think of Arthur. He caught himself quickly and turned to watch Emily.

In the company of friends, Emily blossomed. She opened up, becoming vivacious and lively. Although still a little quieter than her sister, she could definitely hold her own, and was downright cheerful and chatty, a marked change from the shy reader on the morning bus. 

Emily and Eames teamed up to destroy the geography questions. She used to work as a travel agent, and he had done enough travelling (both himself and his current identity) that he could not only answer most of them, but provided amusing anecdotes about each location that was mentioned. As requested, he dutifully filled in the occasional British history question, but found himself appallingly ignorant at the celebrity trivia. Brielle – entomology researcher and self-proclaimed science nerd – was surprisingly knowledgeable though, in addition to nailing the science trivia. Heather filled in some of the obscure art questions; Eames knew the rest of them – hell, he had forged half of the referenced pieces at one time or another – but unfortunately that knowledge didn’t fit his persona, and he had to let them slide. Mark rounded off the group with all things technology.

They won the trivia contest, of course.

During the rounds, Eames subtly studied Erin. How she held herself, the way she talked, the subtle differences in her expression between amused and warm, concentrating and concerned. She was personable and intelligent, easy to talk to. 

At one point, Eames found himself confessing “I miss my cat.” Predictably, all the women at the table cooed in response. Less predictably, Mark was the one who asked to see pictures. Eames apologized for not having any on his phone.

“He’s a beautiful grey tuxedo cat, handsome as they come, very dignified,” Eames described, sketching the lines of Kitten’s white patches on his own face. “He has gorgeous golden eyes, a real darling, although he is a little strange, even for a cat. Quite finicky. I’m convinced he thinks he’s people.”

Then, because he could, he whipped off a quick text to Dom to see how Kitten was doing. Just because his new friends asked of course. Not because he was concerned.

At the next break, Eames retrieved his phone. There were three photos from Dom. The first showed James enthusiastically hugging a rather long-suffering Kitten. In the second, he was perched on top of a bookshelf, looking warily down at the children and their outstretched, grabbing hands. In the third, Kitten is just a grey blur stealing chicken nuggets from Dom’s plate, Phillipa laughing in the background. The accompanying message just said _your cat needs to learn some table manners_. 

Eames chuckled, and shot back, _considering how patient he was with your kiddos, he deserves his own damn plate of chicken nuggets_ , before passing his phone around the table.

The wave of warmth that spread through his chest at seeing Kitten again, Eames tucked away for later examination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kind of got away from me a bit, so I’m cutting it off here. Sorry for the lack of Kitten, we’ll get back to his furry little face next chapter, Eames just has a job to finish first!
> 
> Also, the Market Arms is a great little bar. It’s been a while since I’ve been to their trivia night, but it was always a lot of fun. And if you make it out to Seattle, I definitely recommend Black Raven’s Trickster IPA, if you can find it anywhere.


	7. Chapter 7

Thursday morning, Eames showed up with an extra cup of coffee for Emily. They chatted on the bus, and he memorized the last few details of her face while drawing out stories of favorite trips – a tie between three weeks in India, or two months studying abroad in Paris – and upcoming adventures.

It was a nice, quiet interlude before meeting up with his team to run over the extraction scenario one last time.

The plan was simple enough. The architect, Darren – a new face, competent but inexperienced, having trouble hiding his nerves even on a job this simple; Eames doubted he would last long in their dangerous and often cutthroat line of work – had spent the week casing and then reconstructing the girls’ house while all three roommates were out at work. The dream would be set at home, Madison and Eames-as-Emily talking over drinks before bed, about work stressors and other things troubling them. Eames would make sure to bring up the big case; Madison would have no trouble talking confidential details with her twin. Meanwhile, Ariana, who was working as both point man and extractor this job, would raid Madison’s bedroom, and find her diary, where the remaining details would be written inside.

In and out, quick and easy, nothing to worry about either topside or under. They ran through the scenario twice, which was once more than necessary. 

Ariana quizzed Eames on the details of his forge. He switched back and forth between Emily and Madison a few times, just to demonstrate the subtle differences (and maybe to show off a little), until Ariana could tell them apart. He couldn’t help but compare, wondering how much faster Arthur would have picked it up.

They were ready. The grab was all set for Friday night, exactly on schedule.

\--

The downside of a short practice run, of course, was that it left Eames with that much more time to look for Arthur and worry.

Eames wasn’t exactly sure why he was so concerned. He normally went months without seeing or communicating with the man. Dom was worried, yes, but that was just Dom. He had always demonstrated paternal instincts towards Arthur, and doubtless spending all his time recently as a parent had only exacerbated those tendencies.

Telling himself that it was all for Dom’s sake – not any thoughts or feelings of his own, of course not, those had been banned long ago after Arthur made his position clear – Eames pulled the trigger on his search. It was time to go nuclear.

He just hoped Arthur wouldn’t be too mad at him. And if he was, the Arthurian retribution and legendary wrath might be worth it, just to draw him out of hiding.

Eames drew up a list of Arthur’s most recently active email addresses and phone number, and proceeded to hack into them. 

He intentionally did a sloppy job of it, leaving his digital signature so that Arthur could easily trace him. 

There was nothing on any of the accounts. The last sent email was one mid-job, sending Eames some detail or other about their mark. The last text was to Eames, _meet me at the airport, we’ve been made_. The last activity of any sort was from his phone, initiating Eames’ payment, the day they split. He hadn’t even paid the other members of the job yet.

(Eames was torn on that last one, unsure whether Arthur _didn’t_ pay the others, due to their incompetence, or _couldn’t_. Both were somewhat unsettling options.)

Eames did find one incoming message, buried in a rarely-used email, confirming an itinerary from Prague to Chicago, via London, Morocco, and New York. The tickets were for an “Andrew Goldberg”, one of Arthur’s cleaner aliases.

According to the airline database, Mr. Goldberg boarded his flight in Prague just 4 minutes before the doors closed. He never made his connecting flight in Heathrow. His luggage, however – one carryon-sized roller and one garment bag, gate-checked due to full overhead bins – was waiting in Lost and Found at Midway Airport.

Eames called in a favor, and had the unclaimed bags shipped to his flat in London. Just in case they contained a PASIV or one of his favorite suits. If nothing else, it would give him the chance to search Arthur’s bags for more teasing material.

\--

One of Madison’s favorite activities – as Eames had learned during the week – was going to a bar alone, reading a book and chatting with the bartender. She obsessively checked in on social media every time. Eames marveled just how much of their personal lives some people broadcast on Facebook. 

So when Madison checked in at Canon, a whisky bar in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, Eames showed up half an hour later, “accidentally” running into her under the excuse that one of his fellow conference attendees had insisted he visit it before leaving the city. (One of their bartenders had, apparently, recently won the American Bartender of the year. Eames hadn’t known there was such a thing as competitive bartending. He wondered what Arthur would think of such nonsense.) It was Friday, his conference was over, and of so course Madison had to invite him to join her for a celebratory drink.

Normally, Eames would play the bartender in this kind of con. He had even legitimately worked as a bartender for a few months in his early 20’s, and sometimes missed the routine of mixing drinks and chatting with patrons. Of course, they had had to scrap that plan early on. Riley, their chemist, would fill the role instead.

As Madison and Eames sat and drank, Eames spinning stories about his fake life as a business consultant in London, Riley slipped sedatives into Madison’s drinks. Slowly, so she wouldn’t panic, but just fast enough that she was completely blitzed by the third one.

“Zhack, I’m um, I think I’m drunk. Ssssorry, I don’t normally get drunk like this anymore! Not since college!” Madison emphatically slurred.

Eames, ever the gentleman, offered to call a taxi for her.

“I insist on escorting you home, my friend. You are in no fit state for public transportation right now.” He slipped one strong arm around her waist, gently helping her down from the barstool.

“Mmmkay,” Madison hummed, fumbling with her phone before thrusting it at him. Her address was pulled up on the screen.

The ‘taxi’ that picked them up was a standard rental car. Ariana was driving, Darren riding shotgun, holding the PASIV on his lap. Madison, head lolling and stumbling over non-existent cracks in the sidewalk, was too out of it to notice. Eames poured her into the backseat, then walked around to climb in next to her while Ariana slid into the other side. Riley followed them out to take over the driving.

The 15 minute ride to her house was plenty of time to finish the job. In, out, exactly as planned, with enough time to spare drop Darren off at their hotel to finish packing and cleaning for fingerprints. Despite Ariana’s raised eyebrow, Eames insisted on escorting Madison in to her house himself.

Emily answered the door. 

“Jack, what happened?” She stared in horror at her twin’s barely-upright form. Madison was leaning heavily against Eames’ side. She waved lazily at her sister.

“I’m terribly sorry, I ran into her at the bar, and we just got to drinking and talking, and we must have gotten carried away. This is all my fault. I feel so terrible about it.”

At the sound of his voice, a frantic barking began to echo from inside the house. The source of the commotion – a fat white-and-tan corgi with suspicious eyes and a lopsided blaze on its face – quickly joined them at the door, peering out from behind Emily’s legs. 

“Chance, shut up!” Emily turned to grab her dog before he could run out the door. “Sorry about that, Jack, he just gets a little territorial with new people.” She shook her head at the now-quiet pup, whose stubby tail was wagging at all the attention. “Come on in, do you mind helping me get my sister upstairs to her room?”

While the two of them maneuvered Madison’s uncooperative frame up a flight of stairs and down to the end of the hallway, Chance underfoot the entire time, Madison stirred just enough to slur reassurances at her worried sister. 

“S’okay, Em. I zhusss had too much to drink. Zhack is a… total gen’lem’n. He helped me get home. Thass all.”

A black-and-tan lump in the center of Madison’s bed turned out to be Chester, a second, rather fluffy corgi. He was very reluctant to be shooed off the quilt, and exited the room in high dudgeon. His grumpy exit was somewhat spoiled by the perfectly heart-shaped patch of white fur underneath his non-existent tail.

Eames helped Emily lay her sister down, then stood awkwardly in the bedroom door while she fussed, pulling off Madison’s shoes and carefully pulling a light blanket over her shoulders.

Before leaving – on a whim, and as an apology for drugging and extracting from her sister – Eames scrawled one of his real email addresses on the back of one of his fake business cards.

“Sorry again about getting your sister drunk. It truly was a pleasure to meet you this week. If you two are ever in London, come say hi. I would love to show you around my hometown as a thank you for making me feel welcome in yours.”

For once, Eames found himself meaning every word he said.

\--

Eames stared out the small, triple-paned window. Below him, the dome of Mt. Rainer towered above a thick layer of clouds, its snow-covered flanks painted delicate shades of salmon and copper by the rising sun.

_Seattle isn’t so bad,_ he mused. _It didn’t even rain once. I was expecting more rain._

But as the plane banked, veering south, his thoughts turned from grey clouds to grey fur. A curious sense of anticipation filled him, eagerness and urgency like a horse finally turned home, driving him to restlessness.

He spent the entire flight rolling his poker chip back and forth across his knuckles.

\--

“Dom, where is my cat?” 

Eames skipped the pleasantries. His voice was calm but cool. Dom looked at him suspiciously.

“Hello to you too, nice to see you, you look well, etcetera.”

Dom’s suspicion deepened into a familiar squint.

“Why are you back so early? Successful jobs normally take much longer than that. Something went wrong, didn’t it? You’re being trailed, aren’t you? Eames, if any mafia thugs or hitmen have followed you and find my children, I will never. Ever. Forgive you.”

Eames took a half step back, unnerved at the sudden venom in Dom’s voice. He had gotten used to friendly, fatherly Dom, and while it was good to see that the man hadn’t completely changed, it was also quite unsettling.

“Nothing like that, Cobb,” Eames replied, lifting his hands placatingly. “It was a simple job. Easy in and out. Not my normal type of job, but I was doing a favor for a friend. I assure you, there is no one coming after me.” He paused, and looked thoughtful. “Well, there may have been some three months ago, but I’m pretty sure they lost the trail after a week, so I doubt you’re in any more danger than you would be otherwise.”

The feral danger faded from Dom’s face, but the suspicious squint remained.

An excited voice from inside the house, rapidly growing closer, broke the tension.

“Is that Mister Eames? Is that Mister Eames?” cried Phillipa excitedly. She skidded to a halt in the open door, sliding underneath her father’s outstretched arm. 

“Look, Mister Eames! We made Kitten all pretty!”

Sure enough, there was Kitten, cradled upside down in her arms like an infant. He was dressed in a glittery pink collar that was studded with rhinestones, and had been squeezed into what appeared to be a miniature Disney princess dress. The cat’s face was the definition of long-suffering, but his claws were sheathed and sharp fangs were tucked away.

James wandered up behind her, a sandwich clutched in one grubby fist. He was alternating between eating the sandwich and petting Kitten, getting smears of sticky peanut butter and streaks of dripping jelly all over Kitten’s snow white belly.

Dom had the grace to look a little sheepish.

“I tried to tell them that Kitten is male, but Phillipa insisted that he was too pretty to be a boy.” He leaned in closer to Eames and whispered, “he is male, right? I never exactly checked.”

Eames rolled his eyes, but lowered his voice to match.

“Yes, Dom, Kitten is a boy. In fact, the evidence is clearly on display the way Phillipa is holding him right now. If you can’t tell that he is obviously an unneutered tom, then perhaps someone needs to give you the birds and the bees speech again.”

Dom pinked slightly, and changed the subject.

“So you are here to pick him up, then? I got to admit, I wondered if you were using the job as an excuse to get rid of him. You never struck me as much of a cat person.” Dom sighed, and glanced at his kids. “Truth be told, I was kind of hoping you would leave him here. The kids have become quite attached. The only way I could stop them from begging me to go get another cat was by hinting that they might get to keep Kitten after all.”

It was Eames’ turn to squint suspiciously.

“Dominic Cobb, I am taking my cat.”

Matching actions to words, he reached down and gently scooped Kitten from Phillipa’s arms. “Now, if you don’t mind letting me in, my layover is not that long, and Kitten that apparently needs a bath before I can catch my flight.”

Eames deftly unbuckled the gaudy collar and gently removed the frilly dress, handing both back to Phillipa as he walked inside. He paused at the kitchen, eyed the mountain of dishes filling the sink and overflowing across the counter, and proceeded towards the master bathroom, trailed by the entire Cobb family. The sink in there was only marginally cleaner, but at least it was empty. Dom shooed the children out to keep playing, while Eames turned on the taps.

“Eames, have you hear from Arthur yet? Or did you find any trace of him? He still hasn’t called me back.”

Eames stuck his hand under the thin stream of water, testing the temperature. When he was satisfied that it was warm enough, he wet a washcloth and began dabbing at Kitten’s soiled fur. He kept his eyes fixed on Kitten, not meeting Dom’s worried gaze. Kitten stared back.

“No. No one has heard from Arthur since I last saw him running through the terminal in Prague. He never boarded his connecting flight in Heathrow, near as I can tell. But I left him a message in a couple of locations. Let’s just say, ah, he will feel compelled to respond if he at all can.”

Dom’s squint returned.

“I may have hacked his email a little bit.”

Dom snorted indelicately, but refrained from comment.

Peanut butter unstuck and fur now only slightly stained pink from the jelly, Kitten was clean enough to travel. Eames grabbed the nearest towel to dry him off. Dom started to protest, but subsided at Eames’ protective glare.

“I’ll let you know when I hear from him, okay? But right now, we have a plane to catch.”

As Eames walked towards his rental car, he could hear Phillipa’s plaintive pleading through an open window. “Daddy, can we go to the pet store? I miss Kitten.”

Kitten, who was curled around Eames’ neck like an overgrown scarf, began to purr. Eames smiled and reached up to scratch the base of his ears.

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too darling.”


	8. Chapter 8

Jet lag was a bitch, Eames decided, staring blearily at his empty cupboards. Despite getting a few hours’ sleep on the plane (back to the aisle, Kitten curled against his chest where the flight attendants couldn’t see him and complain), the seven hour time difference between Seattle and London was seriously messing with his head.

And he was out of caffeine. No tea, not even the cheap bagged trash someone gave him as a gag gift. Not even instant coffee.

Eames covered his yawn with one hand, arched his back into a stretch, then bent down to pick up Kitten, who was twining around his feet, seeking attention. He closed the cupboard doors with one hand, cradled Kitten with the other, and wandered towards his home office.

“What am I going to do with you, little one?” Eames asked. “How are you not jetlagged? That’s hardly fair.”

He gently scratched the base of Kitten’s soft ears. Kitten purred in response, a gentle rumbling that sent an answering warmth through Eames’ chest.

Eames sat down at his desk and logged into his rarely-used computer, Kitten butting at his hands for more attention. He checked his emails reflexively, hoping for word from Arthur. “Come on, you well-dressed tease” he muttered under his breath. “I know you’re out there somewhere, laughing at my mother-hen tendencies.” But his inbox was frustratingly empty, except for a few spam emails. “Don’t need that one, _definitely_ don’t need that one,” he muttered, deleting first an invitation to meet hot single women and then ad for penis enlargement drugs.

All of his inboxes were resolutely empty.

“Well,” Eames said, standing up and depositing Kitten into his chair where he had been sitting, “since Arthur is being uncooperative, I’m going to find us some food and proper tea. Do you have any requests, my darling?”

Kitten stared up at him, then let out a tiny, questioning “mrow?”

Eames laughed. “Salmon for dinner tonight it is, Kitten!” he proclaimed. “I like the way you think. Don’t cause any trouble now, I’ll be back for breakfast for the both of us. I might even bring us bacon.”

Kitten’s answering “meow!” sounded like an emphatic “yes please!”

\--

Groceries put away and water heating for tea, Eames went looking for Kitten.

Walking into his office, he spied his furry roommate, curled up on the chair where he had left him. He cocked his head curiously at the illuminated computer screen. The computer was still locked, as he had left it, but he was sure it would have gone to sleep by now. He shrugged, figured Kitten must have bumped the mouse, and leaned in to type his password.

Eames refreshed his inbox - still no unread messages - and was about to relock his computer. Then he froze.

On the sidebar of his email, “Drafts (1)” was highlighted in bold. Eames never left unfinished emails saved to his drafts.

Cautiously, and with no small amount of confusion, he clicked on the folder.

_Dear Mr. Eames_

Eames paused. An email to himself, from himself?

_While I am flattered by your concern – I might even go so far as to say touched – there is nothing for you to worry about. I am simply taking a short personal break. You might even call it a bit of a vacation. Do not come looking for me._

_Sincerely,_

_A_

_P.S. Since you were so presumptuous as to hack into my email, I thought I would return the favor. Please, don’t do it again._

Huh.

Eames sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and reread the email again, slowly. “A” could only mean Arthur, but the message didn’t quite sound like him. And it was so vague. Almost like he was warning Eames of danger, rather than objecting to an intrusion on his personal leisure time.

Something was definitely off, that much was clear.

He leaned forward abruptly, reaching for the keyboard and almost unseating Kitten in the process, who indicated his displeasure with a hint of claws against Eames’ bared thigh. And then he paused and tapped his lip, considering. 

Making up his mind, Eames opened up a new email and began to type.

_Arthur dearest_ he began, and then jumped straight to the heart of the matter.

_I don’t believe you. “Don’t come looking for me” sounds an awful lot like “please come looking for me, I need your help, I am in dire straits.” Is this another Johannesburg situation?_

_You should know by now that you needn’t resort to such trickery to ask for my assistance. I am at your beck and call, merely call my name and I will be there._

Eames looked over what he had written, and then erased the last two sentences. When typed out like that, it sounded more honest and less exaggerated than he intended. After another moment of thought, he added:

_The only reason I’m even looking for you is because Dom asked me to. The poor man is nearly frantic with worry by now. You really should call him, darling._

And then Eames saved the draft, closed it, and relocked his computer. Picking Kitten up, he nuzzled his face against the soft grey fur and gently murmured “I really don’t know what to make of that man sometimes. But if this is how he wants to play the game, then I will play along.”

\--

The day was clear, a rare sunbreak, and Eames was taking advantage of the bright natural light to disassemble and inspect a Patek Philippe watch he had lifted from a mark several months back. 

(The man had been the most repulsive person Eames ever had the misfortune to encounter. After spending hours mired in the man’s subconscious, Eames thought he deserved a $600,000 bonus.)

As he worked, movement on the edge of his vision caught his attention. He looked up, and Kitten pounced again, batting playfully at the bright beam reflected off the watch’s crystal face. Eames smiled and moved his hand, sending both the ray of light and Kitten’s lithe form dancing across the floor. He took the distraction it afforded to set down the watch and roll his neck back and forth. He had been working long enough, and a break sounded like a brilliant idea.

It took a few minutes of rummaging through his bedroom safe and then the dresser drawers to find what he was looking for, wrapped in an old undershirt: his Ruger LCP. The one with added features.

With deft, practiced motions, Eames dropped and emptied the clip, cleared the chamber, then reinserted the clip. He double-checked the chamber one more time, then aimed the weapon at the ground, and pressed the small, concealed button at the base of the trigger guard. The laser dot gleamed brightly back at him from the carpet.

Perfect.

An abundance of caution made Eames triple-check that the chamber was empty as he walked back towards the living room. He flopped down into his favorite overstuffed leather chair, draped his arms over the padded armrests, and rested his head against the plush back. Then he aimed the gun directly between Kitten’s front paws.

Kitten’s entire body went rigid as the bright red spot appeared in front of his face. Eames twitched his wrist, causing the dot to jump about two feet to the side. Kitten’s head whipped around to follow it. Eames did it again, jerking the light in the other direction, then back and forth, Kitten following, until he was afraid it would give him whiplash.

Eames stopped the light directly on top of Kitten’s outstretched, trembling paw. Kitten stared at it, transfixed.

Eames waggled the light, slowly creeping it away from Kitten across the floor. Except for the telltale twitch of his tail, and the occasional movement of a stiffened ear, Kitten could have been a living statue.

Until the little red dot reached the base of Eames’ bare foot, and Kitten exploded into a flurry of motion, a grey comet with ears and claws. He attacked, paw slapping at the dot which was centered on Eames’ left foot.

Eames jumped, startled but pleased to feel no hint of claws on his skin.

He threw back his head, shaking with laughter. The laser dot shook in response, skittering across the floor. Kitten tensed, then pounced in response, batting at the moving light as if he could somehow capture or kill it.

They played like that for a while, until Kitten was panting, tongue hanging out and slender ribs heaving for breath.

In one last burst of motion, Kitten dashed off down the hallway. Eames was puzzled, until he came trotting back down the hall, head held high in victory. In his mouth was a sock from the laundry; one white sock that Eames had accidentally dripped a bit of paint on a few weeks ago. 

Specifically, a single drop of red paint. 

Kitten leapt up onto the chair and triumphantly deposited the sock in Eames’ lap, as if to say _I caught it, I caught the red dot for you!_

Eames stared, then chuckled, then picked up Kitten and nestled him close, mindful to leave him room to breathe. “Oh you intelligent, fantastic, amazing creature you,” he crooned.

\--

The next email from Arthur came a few days after the first. It was just as short, if a little testier.

_Eames,_ it began. No formalities, no “dear” anyone, just straight to the point. 

_I do not need a knight in shining armor, and if I did, I’m not sure I would call you. After all, the only reason there was any trouble in Johannesburg was because you started it when you seduced the mark’s daughter and then humiliated his son in a public game of strip poker, if you recall._

_I am truly fine, just taking some long-needed down time. You would be proud of me. I’m being lazy, playing games, and even taking time for plenty of naps. You don’t need to look for me anymore._

_Tell Dom that I apologize for not calling him. In fact, if you speak to him, tell him I asked how tall Phillipa is these days._

_A_

_PS. That first sentence was a bit of a lie. If I needed a knight to come and rescue me, you know that I would call you first. Ergo, since I have not called you, then I am perfectly fine. But Johannesburg was still all your fault._

Eames sat back in his chair and considered the words on the screen in front of him. He picked up his phone, but just held it, tapping it against his chin and thinking. Then he shrugged, and redialed the last call received.

Just as he was deciding whether to leave a voicemail or not, somewhere on the 11th or 12th ring, a breathless Dom answered the phone, the sound of wailing children in the background.

“I have heard from Arthur. He says he’s fine, and to ask you how tall Phillipa is these days.” There was a hint of question in Eames’ voice.

“Ohthankgodhesokay.” Dom’s words came out in a rush, blending almost indistinguishably together. And then slower, he added, “it’s our code. If Arthur is okay, he asks about Phillipa. If he’s in trouble but can’t say anything, he’ll ask about James. Did he say where he is or what he has been up to?”

“Not really,” Eames replied, “only that he is taking it easy. What he called a ‘much needed vacation’. And that doesn’t sound like the Arthur

Dom just chuckled. “Arthur is fine, I promise you. Thank you for letting me know, but I have to get back to my children now. Goodbye, Eames.”

Eames slipped his phone back into his pocket, thoughtful.

One more email couldn’t hurt.

_Arthur,_

_Since Dom is no longer worried, then I shall set my mind at ease as well. Just remember that, should your present sunny situation change, this knight is at the ready, armor polished to a shine._

_Also, you left your luggage in Chicago. If you want it back, you will have to come find me in person. I had it shipped to my house._

_E_

\--

The pet section was virtually nonexistent, barely three feet of shelf space sandwiched between the toilet paper and the picnic supplies. Eames would have walked blithely past it all, had someone not mis-hung one of the cat toys. But, as it was, the pink feathered _thing_ stuck out at an awkward angle, catching Eames’ attention as he walked down the aisle. It looked like a cross between a child’s fishing pole and a fairy wand, a tangle of ribbon and feathers; Eames stuck it in his basket. Kitten seemed to have changed his mind about playing with the laser pointer, perhaps he would enjoy a toy or two now as well.

When Eames got home, Kitten was curled up in his sunbeam. Eames glanced fondly over at him, then up at the painting hung on the opposite wall, a near-perfect reflection in oil and canvas.

He waited until Kitten was awake, sitting on the sofa next him while he read, looking around and swishing his tail in contentment. Then he reached over the arm, grabbed the toy, and swung it so the feathered end dropped neatly past Kitten’s whiskers.

Kitten froze, then looked over at Eames reproachfully. His entire body trembled with the desire to chase the twitching feathers, but he held back.

Eames jerked the feathers down and across the floor, twitching them like a dying animal. The motion stirred vague memories of cold foggy mornings, fly-fishing with his maternal grandfather in the Ozarks.

Kitten lunged forward, then stopped.

Eames twitched it again, sending the feathers flying to their furthest reach.

At that, Kitten broke. He leapt. A gorgeous blur, a deadly comet, the hunter distilled. Just as Kitten was about to snatch the toy, Eames lifted it up and back the other direction. Kitten twisted, midair, and raced back after it.

Eames was entranced.

Kitten caught the toy this time, taking advantage of Eames’ momentary distraction. Holding it fast between his needle-sharp fangs, he sat down and stared at Eames, wide-eyed. _Now what?_ his gaze seemed to say.

“Oh, you marvelous creature. Stay right there.”

Eames dashed around, snagging sketchpad, pencils, charcoals, a knife, his drafting table.

Kitten was still sitting there, toy in mouth, watching Eames’ hurried setup.

When Eames retrieved the handle of the toy and gently tugged, Kitten released the feathers. They stared at each other in anticipation. Then, with freshly-sharpened pencil in one hand and fairy wand in the other, Eames began.

Back and forth went the toy, back and forth and up and down went Kitten. All the while, Eames sketched madly, attempting to portray the fluid grace of a leap, the coiled power of a crouch, the spectacular, anatomy-defying twists and turns as Kitten flipped and cornered.

By the time Kitten collapsed on the floor, purring madly in between panting for air, Eames had half-filled his book. The drafts were rough, hurried, dark lines and short quick strokes barely managing to capture Kitten’s sinuous curves, elegance in motion. But he was pleased.

Eames couldn’t remember the last time he had sketched like that, all emotion and no technique. This was art that emphasized the essential character of the subject rather than the superficial details. Forging, whether in dreams or life, was all about replication and imitation, requiring only studied perfection. This was raw creation, joyous and unrestrained.

Just like his subject. His muse. 

His new best friend.

\--

A few days later, Arthur’s response arrived.

_Thank you._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I use a little French in here, but I don’t speak a word of French. I speak GoogleTranslate. So, if I made any mistakes, or if there would be a more natural way to say something, please let me know in the comments and I will be more than happy to go correct it!
> 
> ETA 7/31/16: Thank you to Oneiroi and Evaline Hamilton for the French beta suggestions!

“Hello, Ariadne? It’s Eames. Have you heard from Ar–“

Ariadne cut him off with a delighted squeal.

“Eames! Perfect! I have been looking for you, but Dom didn’t have your number, and I don’t exactly know anyone else who would know you, so I’m super glad you called!” She paused for a deep breath, then the rush of words continued. “So I’m back in school, right? And one of my architecture profs said something, and it got me thinking, and I think I have this great idea for dreaming, but I really need someone with more experience who can help me test it out, and I know you’re not an architect, but you do build people, in a way, and that’s the most important part. Dom gave me his PASIV, so I’ve been able to do a little bit of initial testing, but I really need to get another person’s opinion, and I need a second dreamer to test some of the features of my theory, so. Will you come help me?”

The sudden switch from excited rambling to a question threw Eames off a bit. His response was not his most eloquent.

“Hmm, what?”

Ariadne laughed. “Simple question, Eames. First, are you in the middle of a job? Or do you have one coming up soon?”

“No….” Eames drawled, drawing out the vowel a bit uncertainly.

“Are you currently on the run from anyone, or does anyone have a hit on you?”

Eames thought about that one for a second. It was an unfortunately necessary question in his chosen line of work. ”Nope, I’m clear.”

“Then you have no reason not to come and help me,” Ariadne declared. “Unless,” and her voice sank to a suggestive level, “you’re busy with Arthur, and that’s why he’s not returning my calls?”

“What. What?” Eames spluttered. He could hear the innuendo on the word ‘busy’. “No, I’m not with Arthur, not like that, neither presently nor at all. In fact, Arthur is why I called you –“

“Not important right now.” Ariadne cut him off. “You don’t have anything else to do right now, so you’re coming to help me. We will talk about everything else when you get here. I’m in Paris,” she rattled off an address, too quick for Eames to catch clearly, “this is my apartment. I’m here pretty much all the time unless I’m in class, but if I’m not there, one of my roommates should be, and I’ll let them know to let you in. So, when should I expect you to arrive?”

Ariadne was imperious, unshakeable when she set her mind on something. It was one of the things Eames loved about her. He would, of course, help her out with anything, even if she didn’t make it so difficult to say no. 

Eames looked around the house, considering Kitten, the pile of dishes in the kitchen. He scrubbed at his cheeks with his fingertips; he had passed time-to-shave yesterday, maybe a few days before, and was on to full-on growing-a-beard stage. That probably needed to be taken care of as well.

“Give me the rest of the day to gather some stuff together. Email me your address. I’ll catch the train tomorrow morning, and will be at your place in time for lunch. I expect you to compensate me for my time,” he added loftily, “although I will accept payment in wine and fancy baked goods.”

“Wonderful! Perfect!” Ariadne practically squealed. “Now I gotta run do more homework before you arrive. Bye!”

And she hung up. Eames shrugged, and went to start the dishes.

\--

Kitten spent the entire ride across the Channel staring at their fellow passengers from his lofty perch on Eames’ shoulder, wrapped around his neck like a living scarf. Although Eames enjoyed the soft warmth, he disliked the attention it garnered. If Eames had been interested or at all inclined that way, he could have gotten the phone numbers of quite a few beautiful women. 

Kitten seemed to loathe the attention as well. He flattened his ears against his skull, baring needle-sharp teeth any time an unsolicited hand strayed too close for comfort.

Until the last bus, from the train station to Ariadne’s flat.

Eames was looking down at his phone, double-checking the map to make sure he got off at the right stop, when heard a small gasp from across the aisle. He looked up to see the tear-streaked face of a small girl looking at him. Looking at Kitten, he amended mentally, as her gaze was fixed raptly on a point just above his shoulder. The woman next to her – her mother, Eames guessed – looked harried, worried, out-of-place creases marring an immaculately-tailored outfit. She looked a bit like Mal had, at the beginning of the end.

Eames considered the mom, then looked down at Kitten, who was beginning to crawl over his shoulder and down his arm towards the little girl. He looked back up at the woman and raised his eyebrows. She nodded her head in agreement.

Letting a kindly smile drift across his face, Eames patted the seat next to him. “Tu veux caresser mon chat?” The girl looked at him with wide eyes, tears forgotten.

“Oui, merci,” she replied, voice barely above a whisper. She didn’t even look back at her mother, just shuffled tentatively across the aisle and into the vacant seat next to Eames. Kitten immediately walked over to her, butted his face against her small chin, and then curled up in her lap. The ghost of a smile tentatively settled on her solemn face.

No more words were needed. They spent the ride in silence, the little girl happily, carefully petting Kitten. 

After a few short miles, the bus pulled up in front of the Institut Gustave Roussy.

The mother finally spoke up. “Madeline, il est temps d'y aller. Rends son chat au gentil monsieur.”

Madeline reluctantly did so, beaming shyly up at Eames. “Merci, Monsieur. Il est beau votre chat.”

Eames considered her silky blond curls, clearly a wig but artfully concealed beneath a stylish, gauzy scarf.

“Merci,” he replied gravely. “Toi aussi tu es belle.”

As the girl walked toward the door, her step lighter than before, the mother turned back to Eames one more time. “Merci,” she mouthed, and then disappeared into the sunshine after her daughter.

\--

An unfamiliar face greeted Eames at the door to what was supposed to be Ariadne’s apartment. Tall, willowy, blond hair streaked with shades of blue hanging in artful waves – virtually the complete opposite of Ariadne. She opened the door halfway, then stood there, barring entrance with her outstretched arms. Her gaze swept Eames from head to toe, then back up again, slowly. She met his eyes with a smirk.

“You must be Eames.”

“That I am,” Eames replied gallantly, a bit thrown that this stranger knew his name. “And you have me at a disadvantage. What might I call you?”

“I’m Sunny,” she offered. Then she turned her head and yelled over her shoulder into the house.

“Ari, your ‘man friend’ is here! You were right about the tattoos and the sexy accent, but you didn’t mention he was fucking hot, and a charmer! Seriously, damn, girl!”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Sarah!” That was Ariadne’s distinctive voice, from somewhere inside the house. “He’s not available, and even if he was, you’re not his type. Now stop bothering my friend and let him in, bitch.”

Eames did a double take. He had never hear sweet Ariadne sound so, well, profane before.

“It’s _Sunny_ now, asshole! _God_ , how many times do I have to tell you that, _dumbass_!” her roommate snarled back. And then she turned sunnily back towards Eames and gestured inside. “Welcome!” she chirped.

Ariadne met Eames halfway down the front hall.

“Don’t mind Sarah,” she rolled her eyes, “she’s just convinced that changing her major means she needs an entirely new identity. This is the third time she’s changed majors. This year.”

Just then, Kitten decided to crawl out of Eames’ hood where he had been hiding and peered over his shoulder at Ariadne. Ari melted.

“Oh my god, Eames, he’s adorable. He? She?” Ariadne stared raptly at the grey and white, whiskered face, her voice rising half an octave.

“He,” Eames confirmed.

“He is magnificent, Eames. When did you get a cat? How old is he? Can I hold him?”

Eames looked over at Kitten, who promptly crawled the rest of the way up onto his shoulder and reached one paw out towards Ariadne’s outstretched hands.

“I got him a couple months ago, found him half-dead outside of my house, so I have no idea how old he is. The vet estimated two to three years. And apparently, yes, you may hold him,” Eames answered, gently handing Kitten over.

Ariadne cuddled him close, scratching at the base of one ear. Kitten purred in delight.

“What’s his name?”

“Don’t laugh, Ari,” Eames prefaced his response. “His name is Kitten, but I’m guessing that’s what his previous owners must have called him, because that’s what he responded to when I found him.”

“Sure, okay.” Ariadne smirked.

Eames deftly changed the subject, getting immediately down to business.

“Since you mentioned roommates, I figured we wouldn’t be able to do too much dream work in your house, so I took the liberty of renting us a little place to work. When do you want to get started?”

“I thought you might. I’m already packed, although I will have to bring a bit of schoolwork,” said Ariadne cheerfully. “I can leave at any time. Now is as good as any, so my roommates don’t keep pestering you.”

Her hands were full with Kitten, so Eames followed Ariadne back to her bedroom and picked up the bags she indicated.

On the way out to Eames’ small rental car, Ariadne added, “my roommates are convinced we’re sleeping together. That you’re my secret boyfriend, or something. This isn’t gonna help. I mean, I don’t care, they’re all bitches, but if it makes you uncomfortable, I can try to clarify. Or, if it’s not too far away, I can come home every night, but if there’s room, it might be easier if I just stay with you?” She looked suddenly unsure. 

Eames shrugged. “The place I got has two bedrooms, so it’s only logical for you to stay, if you’re comfortable with that. I’m not the one who will have to face your roommates, so it is up to you. I don’t want to make your life any more difficult.”

“No, it’s cool,” Ariadne said, opening the door. She rolled her eyes and tossed her head in the direction of the house. “Besides, Sarah has been an absolute pain in the ass lately, and Michelle’s no help either, so it will be nice to get away from them for a couple of days. Now, the important question is, where do you want to eat? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Over a simple lunch of bread and cheese and – of course – wine, Eames finally returned to his original question.

“So Ari, as I was trying to ask when you interrupted me yesterday, have you heard from Arthur recently? Do you have any idea where he is at the moment?”

Ariadne set down her wineglass and narrowed her eyes at him. It wasn’t a good look on her. Eames had a sudden suspicion that she had been spending too much time with Dom recently.

“No, I haven’t. Why are you asking me? Arthur and I aren’t close friends. And shouldn’t you know that? Aren’t you guys, like, together?”

Eames refrained from spluttering, but just barely.

“As I believe I already told you, no we are not. We’ve never been ‘together’ as you put it.” He took a sip of wine to cover the unexpected wave of disappointment at his admission.

“Eames, you may be the smoothest liar I have ever met, but that one’s not even close to believable.”

Eames made a small noise of protest, but Ariadne continued right over him.

“Seriously, the sexual tension between you two during the Inception job was so thick I could barely breathe. You can’t tell me there’s nothing there. What was it? Was the sex terrible? Did you break his heart?” She paused and considered him thoughtfully. “Let me guess, it was both; you seduced him in a bar one night, had terrible drunken sex, left before he woke up, and then found out the next morning that you two would be working together?”

“Hey,” Eames protested, “why do you assume I would be the one doing the heart breaking? That scenario presumes Arthur even has a heart, which I very much doubt he does, much less one that could be broken.” His voice dropped to little more than a mumble. “Arthur barely tolerates me. He’s not interested in me, never has been. Wish I could say the same in return.”

Ariadne punched him in the shoulder, surprisingly hard for her small frame.

“What do you mean, he’s not interested? Could you be any denser? God, how can you be so good at reading everyone else, and so blind when it comes to Arthur?”

Eames just looked at her, rubbing his shoulder, incomprehension writ plain across his mobile features.

Ariadne softened. “We’re not done talking about this, but I have a feeling it’s going to take a lot more alcohol. What do you say we get out of here, grab a couple more bottles for later, and I’ll show you what I’ve been working on?”

Eames just nodded, grateful for the (no doubt temporary) reprieve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation from the French (I think):
> 
> _”Would you like to pet my cat?”_
> 
> _”Yes, thank you.”_
> 
> _”Madeline, it’s time to go. Give the nice man back his cat.”_
> 
> _”Thank you, sir. Your cat is beautiful.”_
> 
> _”Thank you. You are beautiful too.”_
> 
>    
> Also, Ariadne's guess that _”You seduced him in a bar one night, left before he woke up, and then found out the next morning that you two would be working together”_ is my homage to the brilliant newspaper!AU [Early Returns](http://archiveofourown.org/works/273054) by [rageprufrock](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock).


	10. Chapter 10

Ariadne had claimed the room with the king bed – _“I totally have dibs on this one, don’t even think about it Eames”_ – so they set up in her room. There would be enough space for both of them plus the PASIV on the massive bed.

“So, Ari,” Eames began, opening the silver case and beginning to unwind tubing. “What is this that you want me to help with?”

Ariadne’s eyes sparkled with mischief.

“I think it’ll be better if I show you rather than tell you,” said Ariadne, slipping the cannula easily into her vein. She had definitely been practicing since the last time Eames worked with her. “Now set the timer for about 30 minutes of dreamtime, and meet me down there.” And she pressed the button.

Eames finished his own settings, and then pressed the button to follow her under.

He opened his eyes in Central Park, if the park were the center of all the world’s major cities in one. The Petronas Twin Towers shared a skyline with New York’s Twin Tower’s (still present here, just a ghost of twisted scrap in the waking world), the Space Needle competed with the Chrysler Building and the Eiffel Tower for most iconic, the Shard jutted towards the sky, angry looking and lethal, and the Burj Khalifa towered over them all, while gondolas plied the canals between each building. Projections wandered by: families with strollers, businessmen on a mission, joggers, artists, college students absorbed in their iPhones. It was all familiar. Ariadne liked to reuse this dream as a base for all her architectural experiments, so he’d been in it a few times. 

And it was warm, early summer at least. Eames could always tell when he was in Ariadne’s dreams, by the unchanging warmth.

Ariadne walked up to him, wearing a sundress printed in a cheerful riot of yellow and orange sunflowers.

“Charming dress.” Eames smiled. “It fits the season.”

“Thank you!” Ariadne dropped a little curtsey. “And your shirt is… quite colorful too.”

Eames glanced down at himself. Huh. Salmon and orange again, even more vibrant than normal in the over-saturated sunlight. He had definitely been wearing blue shirt before they went under. He wondered if that was his doing, or Ariadne’s influence; normally Eames held better control over his appearance, but this was her dream, after all.

He looked back up at Ariadne. “Huh, so it is. Well, shall we get started?”

Her grin turned positively wicked. 

“Eames, meet my roommate, _Sarah_.” Eames frowned at the residual distaste in her voice as a familiar leggy blond projection strolled towards them. “I want you to talk to her for a minute or two. And then I want you to kill her.” She grinned toothily.

Eames raised one eyebrow. “Projection or not, I’m not going to kill your roommate. That’s more than a little disturbing. Also, why?”

He shot a concerned look towards Sarah, and then back towards Ariadne. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and focused on the projection’s approaching form. It wavered, then solidified into a generic young man in a suit and dark glasses, security wire protruding from an earpiece.

“Fine, someone you don’t know then. As for why, well, what happens when you start killing someone’s projections?”

“The rest of them get angry, of course, and usually violent. It’s why one generally doesn’t interact with projections if one can help it.” Eames rattled off the answer automatically, eyes still focused on the projection. The figure was now standing slightly to one side of Ariadne, eyeing Eames challengingly.

“Think of this projection as a bodyguard. Just like you might run into on any other job,” Ariadne explained breezily. “Now I’m going to go get myself a pretzel” she waved her hand at a food cart some ways down the green expanse “while you two get acquainted. I’ll come back when I hear a gunshot.” And off she walked, without a backwards glance.

Eames folded his arms across his broad chest and tapped his fingers on his bicep, eyeing the figure before him. The projection stared back impassively. Eames wasn’t used to chatting up projections; normally they were trying to shoot him up, and vice versa. And those were the polite ones. But this was Ariadne’s subconscious he was dealing with. How bad could it be?

“Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Eames mentally made a face at his clichéd words.

The projection merely grunted in response, stone faced behind dark glasses. “Yes,” it stated, voice flat and clipped.

Eames tried again. “Who do you work for?”

“No one,” it replied, still terse and unmoving.

Eames cast his gaze around, looking for something that was not a yes or no question, something that would require more than one or two words for an answer. Normally he was a much better conversationalist, but he couldn’t get any sort of read on this guy. It was like trying to talk to a statue. 

Eames awkwardly stuck his hands in his pockets and began to fiddle with his poker chip. Even in the dream, when it was too smooth, when the weight was all wrong, the feel of it between his fingers was still reassuring, still grounding.

“So, lot of nice buildings in this city. Which one is your favorite?” Eames left one hand in his pocket with the poker ship, pointed with the other at the mishmash of skyscrapers looming over the leafy treetops.

The projection didn’t even look around, just answered flatly, “all of them.”

_Well,_ thought Eames, _that certainly sounds a little more like Ariadne’s subconscious speaking._ He glanced over at her. It looked like she had her pretzel was beginning to walk back towards him.

He looked back at the figure, who hadn’t moved an inch since it first stopped walking. Eames figured he had gotten enough of a read on the character, as much as he was ever going to be able to get, so he moved on to part two of Ariadne’s rather vague instructions. He dreamed up a gun – his favorite Glock 9mm – and neatly dispatched the uncommunicative projection with a bullet through the center of its forehead.

As he watched the body collapse like a marionette with cut strings, two other projections in neat suits walked passed, heads bent in earnest conversation. They glanced up at the sound of the gunshot, then turned right back to their conversation, completely unfazed. 

As promised, Ariadne walked up behind Eames while the last echoes of the gunshot were still fading from the surrounding buildings.

“So, what did you think?” she asked.

Eames pursed his lips, and thought about her earlier instructions. 

“He seemed... flatter than normal. Not quite solid. And the other projections didn’t care when I shot him. They should have at least glared at me, if not pulled out weapons of their own.” He gestured at the departing backs of the businessmen. “They should have reacted more.”

“Well, you didn’t give me much time to work. Sarah would have been a little more substantial. I’ve been practicing with her.” Her gaze followed the businessmen, excited. “Now, the non-reaction of the projections. That’s exactly what I was hoping for.” Ariadne turned towards Eames, eyes glowing. “Shoot one of them. Let’s prove out my theory.”

Eames shrugged, then raised his gun and fired. A direct hit, right between the shoulder blades of the left hand projection, dropping him mid-stride.

The result was instantaneous.

The other projection whipped around, pulling out a gun of his own, and began advancing on Eames and Ariadne. Clouds scuttled over the sunlight out of nowhere, and the temperature dropped as a strong breeze picked up. The other projections began to look around, faces darkening in matching scowls.

Ariadne grabbed Eames by the wrist and ran towards the trees. Eames kept pace, spurred by gunshots too close behind for comfort. Intellectually he knew that dying in a dream would just send him back to the waking world – he’d certainly done in countless times, in more ways than he cared to enumerate – but he always preferred to avoid it if he could. The kick would come soon enough.

They ran until they had lost the projection among the branches. Eames peered around one thick trunk, and saw it walking away, muttering and looking around suspiciously.

He turned back to Ariadne, who had one hand pressed to her ribs, massaging out a stitch from the sprinting. He mirrored her panting breaths for a minute, feeling like something was sitting on his chest.

“So, why did your subconscious act differently when I killed the second projection?”

Ariadne grinned. “The first one wasn’t a projection. He was a building. A moving, talking, human-shaped building. Living scenery, I’m calling it.”

_...L’amour ne s’explique pas! C’est une chose comme ça!..._ faded into the edge of their hearing, drifting through the sky overhead. 

_...Love can’t be explained! It comes, just like that!..._ Eames’ mind automatically translated.

“Oh,” said Ariadne. “There’s our kick. I’ll explain more, topside.”

The trees began to fade from around them, winking out one by one, like stars swallowed by the sunrise.

_...Qui vient on ne sait d’où, et vous prend tout à coup. Moi, j’ai entendue dire, Que l’amour fait souffrir..._

_...From where it comes, no one knows, and suddenly it takes hold. Me, I’ve heard it said that it makes you suffer..._

Eames opened his eyes to an intent, bewhiskered golden gaze. Kitten was sitting square on his sternum. 

He sat up, propping himself against the headboard, careful not to dislodge Kitten. He left the IV in, on the chance they might go back under for a second run. While he waited for her to wake up he scratched one soft furry ear idly, pondering Ariadne’s aborted explanation.

Ariadne woke slowly. She blinked lazily a few times, then rolled her head to the side to smile at Eames. Her grin turned sappy at the sight of Eames cuddling with Kitten. Eames ignored it.

“Édith Piaf? Wouldn’t have pegged you for a fan.”

She eased her way vertical and glared at him defiantly. “Arthur got me hooked. And I like the lyrics. I find them… fitting.”

Eames pondered her implication, then willfully ignored it. He was getting good at ignoring such things.

“So… living scenery, you were saying?”

Ariadne’s face lit up. “Yeah!”

Eames mentally braced himself for the flow of words that he knew would come next.

“So, I was in one of my architecture classes a few weeks ago, and my prof was talking about how you need to design your building for the people that will be using it and living in it. Like, design the people as an integral part of the building. So of course, then I started wondering, could I actually construct reasonable facsimiles of human beings, like I do buildings and cityscapes in the dream, ones that could be as believable as one of your forges? Well, maybe not quite that realistic and awesome, but usable for minor interactions. Something you can talk with, at least. And then I got to wondering whether adding extra people to a dream like that would bother your subconscious, or whether it would prevent you from spawning projections to populate the empty space. So of course then I called Dom to see if I could borrow his PASIV, and he actually flew out here and gave it to me! But he made me promise to call him regularly, and never go down below one level by myself for any of this, and to make sure there was no chance of anyone interrupting me and finding the machine, so it’s been kind of hard to get the practice that I need. I mean, I’ve figured out a few things, obviously. I can definitely create people-shaped set pieces, they feel kind of like puppets to me, you know? And there are a couple theories that I want to test out, but I haven’t had the time or interaction with anyone else to really work on them. And then you called, so here we are!”

Ariadne paused to gauge Eames’ reaction. She was nearly breathless, quivering with nervous excitement, like a student waiting for their grade on a final exam. Eames supposed that was reasonably accurate, the newcomer looking for validation from the one with experience.

“I’m not sure I would have ever thought to try that, but I have to admit, it’s quite brilliant. Tell me more about these theories of yours.” Eames let his pride show clearly on his face, and gestured with one hand for her to keep going. The other was still occupied with Kitten.

Ariadne took a deep breath and continued, one hand waving expressively to emphasize her points, the other still hooked up to the PASIV. “Well, as you already saw, they’re a little flat. To me, it kind of feels like pulling puppet strings. Like with any building, they’ll follow the laws of physics, gravity and whatnot, or whatever your current laws of physics are anyway,” she flipped one hand dismissively, “but in order to change them, like make them grow taller, add doors and hallways, things like that, you have to consciously effect the change. I don’t know about you, but trying to control my real projections is kind of like directing a play; you can tell the actors what to do, but they might not listen to you. So if you needed multiple characters to do and say exactly what you need them to, and don’t have enough forgers, I thought you might be able to substitute with the puppets. Not for detail work like you do, obviously, at least not yet, but maybe for short interactions?”

Eames nodded thoughtfully. In his experience, to controlling ones projections could be tricky. If you didn’t control them well, one ended up with Mal-shaped demons and surprise trains through the center of one’s dreamscape. These puppets sounded like a possible alternative.

“I see where you’re going with that. Could anyone control the ‘puppets’, as you call them? Or just the main dreamer, as with projections?”

Ariadne grinned. “That was my next thought, and why I needed a second dreamer. I _think_ that anyone should be able to control a puppet. I mean, people can affect each other’s architectures. After all, isn’t that what an architect does? Goes into a mark’s dream and builds an entire world in their head? Obviously the mind rebels a little bit, if you start messing with someone’s architecture too much, but not nearly the same as if you mess with their projections. You saw that in my dream just now. I wasn’t trying to suppress my subconscious at all, just let it react naturally, like a mark’s might.”

“You make a good case.” Eames stroked his lips with a two fingers, pondering. “So how do you want to test that? Go back into the last dream, and see if I can control your puppets?”

“Actually, I thought you might give it a try. Create a puppet of your own, to get the feel of it, and I can try to control it, or modify it. What do you say?”

Eames shrugged. “It can’t hurt to try.” He reached over to reset the timer on the machine. “Thirty minutes of dreamtime again?”

Ariadne nodded. “Plenty. I’ll see you down there.”

Where Ariadne’s dream was a riot of colors and structures, brilliant sunshine in a warm blue sky, Eames’ was simpler. More subdued, like soft oils to her bold acrylics, or an impressionist painting versus her hyperrealism. They were standing in front of a stone house surrounded by what could have been olive trees. Around them were rolling, arid hills patchworked with verdant crops and stunted trees. A small town with white stucco buildings and terra cotta roofs stood out in the distance. They could have been anywhere in the Mediterranean region - Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, even Turkey or Greece. A gentle breeze lessened the heat of the noonday sun. There were a few projections nearby, working in a field, riding a bicycle past them on the single-lane dirt road, pruning the trees, but the dream was otherwise mostly empty.

Ariadne looked around, absorbing every detail of the environment, then down at herself. With a brief stare of intense concentration, she switched her outfit from her top-side jeans and layered tshirts back to the sunflower-covered dress.

Eames felt a wave of goosebumps on the back of his neck.

“All right, Eames, your turn, show me what you can do,” Ariadne commanded brightly.

Eames set aside his brief unease, and closed his eyes, focusing on recreating the generic bodyguard from Ariadne’s dream. It felt a little like creating a forge, but outside of his own body. The effect was a little disconcerting. As he concentrated on the details of the figure, he could feel his own body begin to shift to match, and mentally _shoved_ is away from himself. It felt oddly like he imagined a moulting crab might feel, stepping out of one’s body and leaving the shell behind.

He opened his eyes to see the bodyguard standing impassively by the door to the house.

The next two were easier. Eames tried to think of it more like adding a tree, or framing an outbuilding. The new individuals began walking jerkily around them. They looked convincing, more detailed than his dreamscape and more realistic than Ariadne’s, but Eames had a hard time holding on to more than one or two at a time. Once he lost focus, they stopped moving, became little more than statues. It really was like controlling puppets, he realized.

Ariadne rubbed her hands together. “Good, that looks good! Let me see if I can take over one of them now.” She focused her gaze on the nearest figure, a stereotypical gardener in heavy canvas overalls carrying a large pair of shears and some baling twine.

Eames could feel the moment she locked on to the character. Shears turned into pruning snips, and gravity briefly shifted sideways a few degrees. The figure grew taller and younger, and the tiniest vibration swept across the ground, like a pre-shock warning of an impending temblor, or like the rumble of bass too low to hear.

Ariadne narrowed her eyes in concentration, and the figure walked towards Eames. “Good afternoon, sir,” it said in an awful Italian accent, “I’m here to help prune the grape vines. Unless you need me to do something else?”

Eames could feel his subconscious rebelling. He was impressed by Ariadne’s control of the creation, but at the same time was reminded why he was rarely the primary dreamer with other people; his subconscious was too sensitive to outside influence. It always had been, and that had made some of his early training days very uncomfortable for his teammates. He shoved it back, hard.

“No, the vineyard is fine,” he managed to respond. The figure nodded, and walked away, smooth gait giving way to jerky autopilot as Ariadne let up on her control. 

Eames mentally and physically breathed a sigh of relief. The clouds on the horizon faded back to white from an ominous slate.

“Hey, it worked!” Ariadne seemed completely unaware of Eames’ subconscious struggle. “Now let’s see if your projections are equally unphased as mine were!”

Before Eames could warn her, she dreamed up a gun and took down the nearest figurine, the bodyguard.

And immediately, all hell broke loose.

Projections emerged out of nowhere, stepping impossibly from behind slender olive trees, swarming out of the house like deranged clowns from a miniature car, some simply appearing from empty air. Some were armed with sharpened farm implements, others with a creative arsenal of projectile weaponry. Eames tried his best to hold them back. _Exit stage_ , he thought, going for Ariadne’s direct-a-play metaphor. _Exit, pursued by a bear_ , his Shakespearean-trained mind supplied.

Eames heard a deep growl behind them as an angry grizzly appeared mere feet behind Ariadne. There was nothing Eames could do to stop it. He had completely lost control.

Ariadne was too focused on fending off the human-shaped projections, throwing annoyed-slash-puzzled looks at Eames, to notice the threat behind her. The bear loomed over her, then suddenly bent down and grabbed her by the skull in its giant maw. Ariadne screamed.

Eames knelt down, swiftly dreamt himself up a sniper rifle, and took her out with a mercy shot. It wasn’t the first time that Eames’ subconscious had mauled someone with a bear, and no one deserved that, especially not one of his closest friends.

But with Ariadne gone, Eames’ subconscious revolt died down, aware only that the perceived intruder was gone.

Eames looked around, rifle hanging loosely from one hand, embarrassed and frustrated at the carnage of projections. Then he shifted the rifle into a handgun and sent himself back topside.

By the time he woke, Ariadne was already sitting up, IV out, looking a little pale. Kitten was purring reassuringly, butting at her fingers. She stroked him tentatively, one hand curling repeatedly in his soft fur, the other rubbing at her scalp where she no doubt felt the lingering echo of the bear’s massive teeth.

Eames busied himself with removing his own needle and winding up the used tubing for disposal, face burning with embarrassment as he tried to think of something more sufficient than “I’m sorry”.

_...En somme, si j’ai compris, sans amour dans la vie, sans ses joies, ses chagrins, on a vécu pour rien?..._

The kick song began to play, too late, but it was enough to jolt them both from their respective silences.

“Sorry about that,” Eames offers, fidgeting with the last piece of tubing. “My projections are normally more well-mannered than that.”

“It’s okay, I’ve had worse.” Ariadne shrugged. “But thanks for getting me out of there so quickly.”

Eames reflected, not for the first time, how strange his life was sometimes. Most people wouldn’t thank you for shooting them.

“Still, I apologize profusely. And I think it might be time to take a break. We can try again tomorrow. What do you say to some takeout for dinner, and opening those bottles of wine we purchased earlier?

Ariadne briefly looked like she might rebel against the implication that she was too rattled to continue, but her rapid acquiescence betrayed her external nonchalance. 

“That sounds like a great idea! After all, we never finished a certain conversation at lunch, and don’t you dare think I’ve forgotten about it…”

As Eames reached for his phone to search for local takeout joints, he could feel a completely different kind of dread settle over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kick song is A quoi ça cert l’amour (What good is it, love?) by Édith Piaf. The second set of quoted lyrics translates to: “All in all, if I understand it, without love in your life, without its joys and sadness, you've lived for nothing.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to reader triannegular, who pointed out that having a non-human projection is kind of unusual.

Dinner was a quiet affair. Eames and Ariadne chatted about little nothings – Ariadne’s classes, Eames’ paintings, Dom and his kids, favorite things to do in Paris, everything except for what had happened in the dream that afternoon. Kitten kept trying to steal bits of Pad Thai from Eames’ plate, but Eames, ever wary of onions and other banned foods, kept setting him back on the floor, until Kitten finally gave him a look of disgust and ran off to sulk under the couch.

It wasn’t until they moved to the living room with their second bottle of wine that Ariadne finally broached the topic.

“So, Eames, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that bear.”

Although Ariadne’s tone was light, Eames froze in the middle of refilling his wine glass. After all, accidental or not, it still wasn’t nice to maul ones friends like that.

“Is that some sort of Freudian projection? Because I would have pegged you as more of an otter.”

Eames relaxed, finished filling his own glass, and poured a large portion into Ariadne’s for good measure.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I prefer not to use such labels myself. I feel they never quite manage to capture all the facets of my complex and sparkling personality,” he replied loftily.

Ariadne grinned, and gently nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.

“But you have to admit, having a bear for a projection is kind of weird. At least, I’ve never met anyone else with animal projections. You really do have to be unique in everything, don’t you?”

Eames’ face cycled through pride, mistrust, and consideration, before settling back on pride. “Yes, I consider it one of my strengths,” he preened. And then he sobered, looking apologetically at Ariadne. “But in this case, definitely more of a hindrance. I wish I had more of your control. You made it seem so effortless.”

Ariadne fiddled with the stem of her wine glass. “I wonder how much of it has to do with my inexperience, actually. I haven’t had nearly as many bad experiences as I’m sure you’ve had, so my subconscious isn’t nearly so skittish of intruders.”

“Mm, you make a good point. Not much I can do about that then, I’m afraid. I’m sure it also has to do with your natural optimism. You always seem to see the best the people around you. I don’t meet too many people like that anymore.”

Ariadne grinned sheepishly. “Thanks? Well, if I’m the only one who can pull this off, I don’t know how much use it’s going to be after all.”

“No, it’s a good idea. There’s got to be another way around it.”

“Think Yusuf could help?”

Eames shot Ariadne a considering look.

“I mean, he did figure out how to tweak the Somnacin to get us more time in the different levels in Inception. Think he could figure out how to mix it with a different sedative, or something? Sorry, that’s probably a silly idea.” 

“No, no, that brilliant, actually. I was trying to figure out how to do the opposite of militarizing, some sort of laborious mind training, but you went straight for the easy solution.” Eames pulled out his phone and started scrolling through the contacts. “I might even still have a valid phone number for him in here somewhere.”

Eames scooted closer to Ariadne on the couch, then dialed Yusuf on speakerphone. He hoped the man was still in Mombasa; two hours ahead of their current time wouldn’t be too late to call. Yusuf could get quite cranky if he was woken up for non-urgent matters. 

(Eames had learned this the hard way a few years back. Getting a batch of Somnacin tainted with hallucinogens had been a fascinating but ultimately unpleasant experience. Yusuf could be quite creative when it came to revenge.)

“Eames my friend, how are you this fine evening?” Yusuf answered, after the third ring.

“Hey Yusuf, it’s Ariadne here too. We ran in to a little problem while practicing a dream today, and we’re wondering if you might have a chemical solution for us.”

“Ariadne, as I live and breathe! What are you doing hanging out with that good-for-nothing rascal? Have you finished school already?” Yusuf’s voice was warm, his teasing gentle.

Ariadne giggled lightly. “No, I still have one year to go. Eames is helping me with a sort of school project, you might say. Well, inspired by school anyway.”

“And you called Eames for help first? I wonder if you are not quite as sensible as I thought.”

Eames glared at the phone in his hands.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I can be perfectly respectable and helpful when I want.”

“Of course, my friend, of course. Now, what is this problem, and how can Yusuf be of assistance?”

Ariadne and Eames looked at each other. Eames gestured to let Ariadne explain it. She shook her head, and pointed back at him.

“Well, apparently my subconscious is a little too sensitive to intruders mucking about in it. We were experimenting with this rather brilliant architecture idea that Ariadne had, and I was the primary dreamer, and, well, one of my projections turned into a bear and kind of started to chew on her.” Eames rubbed at the back of his neck, still embarrassed by his lack of control.

Yusuf hummed thoughtfully. “Like what happened with Boris that one time?”

“Exactly like that. So we were wondering if you have any Somnacin variants in your stash that might serve to restrain or otherwise calm the dreamer’s subconscious, without affecting their clarity or perception too much?”

Yusuf hummed again. “Such a compound could be helpful with a militarized mind, so I have been experimenting and have a few possibilities. I will overnight ship a few vials to you if you provide me with an address.”

“I’ll text it to you,” Eames said.

“I haven’t had a chance to test these compounds yet, you understand,” Yusuf added. In the background, they could hear a female voice yell something. Eames thought it might be in Swahili. “Ah, and my darling is calling me to bed. I must go. Make sure to have Arthur stay awake for your first test with any of these compounds. He has more emergency medical training than you two, and knows what to do if either of you have a bad reaction. Not that I expect a reaction, but better safe than sorry, of course.”

And with that, he hung up.

Eames stared at the silent phone, confused, until Ariadne began to giggle. He turned his baffled look on her.

“Why does Yusuf assume that Arthur is here?”

Eames rescued the glass of wine from her hand just as Ariadne collapsed onto the floor, laughing uncontrollably. Kitten crawled out from under the couch to investigate and nosed at her face. Eames waited patiently, until her laughter had died down to the occasional giggle. Ariadne pushed herself back up to mostly vertical and pulled Kitten onto her lap so she could pet him with both hands.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, your face, you looked so _offended_. And so _confused_.”

“I seem to have missed some memo then, because I most certainly am confused. Would you care to enlighten me?” Eames asked dryly

“Come on Eames, really? Why _wouldn’t_ Arthur be with you? _Everyone_ has seen the way you two look at each other when you’re together. The way you tease each other. And you’re _always_ talking about him, almost as much as he talks about you!”

Ariadne climbed back up on to the couch, handed Kitten to Eames, and reclaimed her wine.

“So don’t you dare tell me that you two are ‘just coworkers’, or some nonsense like that.”

“I...I…” Eames spluttered. Then he sighed, deeply, in the way that only unrequited lovers can sigh. “Why Ari, why did I have to go and fall in love with someone who will never love me back?” He stared down at Kitten on his lap, who stared back, brown eyes wide and unblinking. “I am so, deeply, utterly besotted,” he added, dropping his head and lifting Kitten to his face, muffling his words in in the soft grey fur, “I am giddy for days at his merest condescension, all because it means he actually noticed me. It is completely undignified for a man of my years, and yet I am completely, hopelessly lost.”

Eames peeked up from Kitten’s fur at Ariadne’s dawning comprehension and disbelief. He carefully lowered Kitten to his lap as Ariadne turned to face him, cross-legged on the cushions.

“You mean… you guys never… Oh. My. God. You two are painfully adorable, and I do mean painful. How can you not see that Arthur is just as infatuated as you?”

Eames scoffed, drowning the sudden spark of hope at her words in a rather large swallow of wine. He had to concentrate carefully to avoid choking on it.

“Nonsense. You are being horribly unkind to me. Have you not heard a word he says? If he’s not mocking my ideas, he’s complaining that my choice in clothing offends his eyes. He once asked if I got dressed in the dark because, and I quote, my outfit was _’less appalling than normal’_. He seems shocked that I am capable of putting two coherent sentences together in a row.”

Ariadne frowned at him. She took a sip of wine as she considered her next words.

“First of all, Arthur has told me more than once that he likes working with you because you have the best, most creative plans and are hands down the most responsible person under pressure that he has ever had the pleasure of working with. His words. And secondly,” she raised her hand to silence Eames’ wordless protest, “do you want to hear what he told me last time he came by to visit?”

Eames wilted under her pointed stare.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay. So, Arthur came to visit me when he was in Paris a few months ago-“

“Ah yes, his annual pilgrimage,” Eames interjected. Ariadne raised a knowing eyebrow at him. “My apologies, do go on.”

“ _Any_ way, as I was saying…”

> _“It’s not fair, it is simply not fair,” Arthur declared, waving his croissant for emphasis._
> 
> _“What’s not fair?” Ariadne took a delicate sip of her cappuccino._
> 
> _“That here I am, spending hundreds, many hundreds of dollars and Euros to update my wardrobe, while Eames can achieve the same effect with ten dollars at his local thrift  
>  store. I mean, have you seen the colors he throws together? They should clash, they absolutely should, but he makes them look fantastic. No one should look that good in orange and salmon pink, but no one.”_
> 
> _“Well,” Ariadne supplied helpfully, “it probably doesn’t hurt that you think he would look good out of his clothing too.”_
> 
> _“What? I.. no.. maybe.. yes?. That’s not the point!” Arthur spluttered. “Why can’t you be on my side for once?”_
> 
> _“Oh, I’m completely on your side, Arthur. On the side of you and Eames doing sexy things to each other that don’t require clothing.”_
> 
> _“Shut up,” Arthur groused. “Now are you coming with me to the Bottega Veneta show, or are you going to keep running your mouth and force me to leave you behind?”_

“Well first of all,” Eames interrupted, frowning, “I most certainly do not buy all of my clothing in charity shops.”

Ariadne rolled her eyes. Kitten purred noisily. If Eames didn’t know better, he would have sworn it was supposed to be a chuckle.

“And secondly, why wouldn’t he just tell me that?” 

Eames looked honestly confused. Ariadne took pity on him.

“It’s all just schoolyard pigtail pulling. Seriously, you two are such boys. It’s like you never learned how to straight up tell someone ‘I like you’, you have to mercilessly tease them instead.”

“So what do you suggest I do, then, my all-knowing fairy godmother?”

Ariadne ignored the jibe.

“I say we should take a shopping trip tomorrow. You should pick out the loudest, most fashionable tie that you think Arthur might wear. Then, next time you see him, you should tell him ‘Darling, I saw this in Paris and thought of you. You would look bloody fantastic in this color. And if you don’t like it, we can use it to tie your wrists to the headboard of my hotel bed, which just so happens to be right around the corner. Or we can tie up my wrists, I’m not picky. Oh, and by the way, I’m madly in love with you.’ Problem solved. Get your feelings out there, and if you’re lucky, get laid in the process.”

Eames’ face grew redder and redder the longer Ariadne talked, until finally she took pity on him and broke off into laughter.

“Or you can, you know, continue to be a boy and not talk about your feelings. You decide. But for now, we drink!”

Ariadne flourished her now-empty glass in conclusion before promptly refilling it. She topped off Eames’ half-empty glass, emptying the last few drops from their second bottle.

“There’s more where that came from. Now since you don’t want to talk about you, I have to tell you all about this boy in one of my classes, I think he might like me…”

\--

The next day dawned much later than planned, but still much too early for the two hungover friends.

Eames, who was only slightly miserable, took it upon himself to venture out into the neighborhood in search of ingredients for breakfast. It took him longer than he planned to find an open market; more than once he found himself wishing for Arthur’s encyclopedic knowledge of Paris.

Ariadne was still sound asleep when he returned. By the time she stumbled into the kitchen, eyes half closed and hair a riot of fluffy tangles haloing her head, he had a pot of coffee brewed and was frying potatoes in the house’s single dented crepe pan. Kitten was up on the counter next to him, nosing curiously around the plate of cooked sausages.

“How many eggs to do you want?” Eames asked, handing her a cup of coffee, cream no sugar.

Ariadne grunted in response, then took a gulp from her mug. The noise of appreciation she made was almost obscene.

“God, Eames, I would marry you for this if you weren’t completely smitten with Arthur. And, y’know, gay. Maybe I’ll just marry this coffee.”

She took another large sip, and then considered his original question. 

“One. I think I could manage one egg. Fried, please. I can’t handle a runny yolk right now.”

Eames chuckled and turned back to the stove, nudging Kitten’s curious nose away from the hot pan.

“One small English breakfast, coming right up! Well, as near as I can manage. These French bangers aren’t quite the real thing, but they should be good enough for a hangover.” 

Ariadne eyed the plate with some trepidation when he slid it across the table to her, but dug in anyway.

Eames quickly scrambled up another egg for Kitten, then chopped up a sausage into small bites. He popped one in his mouth to make sure it was cool before putting Kitten’s plate down next to Ariadne’s.  
Kitten skillfully hopped the gap between counter and table. When Eames joined them a few minutes later with his own plate, Kitten stopped eating just long enough to butt his head against Eames’ shoulder a couple of times before returning to his food. 

Ariadne said nothing, just raised one eyebrow at the pair and poured herself another cup of coffee.

They finished their breakfast in contented silence and warm Parisian sunlight.

\--

The dream was sunny and warm, a nondescript afternoon in a nondescript city. Eames was focused on controlling a new puppet-figure. Ariadne was talking with it, trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. It was working better than the last try; Eames could feel his subconscious as a quiet, pleasant background hum, almost like being tipsy without the fuzzy-headedness.

 _Well done, Yusuf,_ he thought.

And then he collapsed to his knees, a searing pain radiating from his chest to his shoulder.

Eames had just enough time to see Ariadne dive for him, her eyes wide in panic, and to register that the discomfort was originating topside before the pain kicked him out of the dream. He opened his eyes to see Kitten, standing on his chest, one set of claws outstretched, prepared to rip another set of bleeding gashes into his shoulder. Immediately Kitten leapt away and darted out the open bedroom door.

Before Eames could respond, to chase after Kitten, scold him, find some bandages, do _something_ , he heard the distinctive snick of lockpicks in the front door. He barely had enough time to turn off the PASIV, pull out their lines, and shove the silver case roughly underneath a pillow (but unfortunately not enough time to grab the gun hidden in his suitcase) before three armed gunmen stormed into the room. The men were shouting over each other in what sounded like Russian, possibly Macedonian or Bulgarian. (Eames really needed to brush up on his Slavic languages.)

In no time, the men had bullied Eames and the still-groggy Ariadne into the center of the living room and down onto their knees, hands behind their heads. Two of the men held silenced pistols to the base of their skulls. The third stood in front of them, holding a Kalashnikov in a worryingly casual manner.

“Where is Arthur?” he demanded, in heavily-accented English.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Eames’ first thought was one of amusement. _Seriously, why does everyone think I know where Arthur is all the time? Am I really that obvious?_

“We know he is with you, so where is he?” the thug repeated.

 _Yusuf’s phone must be bugged again. Must remember to warn him when we get out of here,_ was Eames’ second thought. He stayed silent.

“We don’t care about you or your pretty friend here. But Arthur, shall we say _owes_ us. So tell us where he is, and you two might just get to keep breathing.”

 _Well fuck,_ was Eames’ last thought. _What kind of trouble is Arthur in, and why the hell didn’t he ask me for help?_


	12. Chapter 12

_”Well fuck,” was Eames’ last thought. “What kind of trouble is Arthur in and why the hell didn’t he ask me for help?”_

 

All of a sudden a snarling grey blur burst from under the couch. Kitten leapt forward, using Eames’ shoulder as a springboard to fling himself at the nearest hitman in a whirlwind of teeth and claws.

There was a nearly-inaudible keening sound, a ripple in the air like a desert mirage, and then there was a very naked, very angry, very _human_ Arthur flying feet-first at the startled thug.

The man went down hard, Arthur’s bare feet a one-two punch at his unprotected throat and stomach. Arthur grabbed his gun before it hit the ground, landing catlike on the balls of his feet. He spun fluidly, gracefully, taking out the other two with quick shots from the stolen weapon before they had a chance to recover from their surprise. A pause, then one final shot to ensure that the first thug would stay down for good. Arthur flipped on the safety and tossed the gun down next to its former owner. 

He turned slowly, hands on hips, and stared down at his two friends. Eames and Ariadne were still on their knees on the floor, frozen in place by the sudden series of impossible events.

Arthur cocked an amused eyebrow at Eames. “Kitten? Really? That’s the most creative name you could come up with for me?”

“Hey! That is an unfair accusation! I offered you a number of creative names, if I recall, and that was the only thing you would respond to!” Eames protested, cheeks flushing pink.

“Wait… wait… Arthur? What just happened? You’re a… cat? You? Are Kitten?” Ariadne chimed in. She looked over at Eames. He looked back. Then the two of them dove simultaneously for their tokens.

Eames pulled his poker chip out of his trousers and flipped it around his fingers to feel the weight, rubbed his thumb on the rough edges. It felt right, every little scratch and nick exactly where it should be, and yet – it didn’t make sense. Ariadne fiddled with something in her pocket but didn’t pull it out. Arthur stood over them, surprisingly patient, understanding and sympathy clear on his face.

Eames finally decided that yes, somehow, bizarrely, this was reality. Or at least close enough to it that he should assume so until he could get a rational explanation out of Arthur. He allowed himself a few extra moments to admire Arthur’s naked form, unsure when he might ever get another opportunity. Then he pushed himself to his feet, grabbed a small knitted afghan from the back of the couch, and tossed it to Arthur to cover himself with.

Ariadne quickly followed suit, standing and stepping aside to avoid the rapidly spreading blood. She kept her eyes down, avoiding Arthur’s now partially-covered form in a combination of politeness and embarrassment.

_”…C’est toi que je voulais! C’est toi qu’il me fallait! Toi que j’aimerais toujours…”_

The soft strains of the kick playing in the bedroom jolted them all from their awkward standoff. 

Arthur’s mouth quirked into a grin, although his eyes slid over Eames, considering, before turning to Ariadne.

“Piaf. A quoi ça sert l’amour. I assume that was your choice? You do have good taste.”

Ariadne smiled briefly, shakily in return.

Eames decided that he would give considerable sums of money to hear Arthur speak more French at him in that smooth, confident tenor. 

But not just yet. 

Before explanations, or seductions in French, or anything interesting like that, there were three very dead bodies to take care of. And despite the silencer (which Eames had always thought was a bit of a misnomer – the things prevented you from losing your hearing, yes, but a “silenced” .40 caliber handgun was still nowhere near _silent_ like the movies lead you to believe), someone had no doubt heard the gunshots. 

Eames had very good reasons to avoid talking with the Parisian police force if he could avoid it, reasons which Arthur knew about and which Eames would very much like to avoid getting into in front of Ariadne.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), dreamsharing being what it was, Arthur and Eames both had experience with disposing of bodies and cleaning up evidence. Neither of them preferred to kill outside of dreams if they could help it. But not everyone shared their views and, well, sometimes self-defense happened.

“I’m sure you two could discuss obscure artists all day long, but darling, we do have a bit of a situation here.” Eames gestured at the floor. “Ariadne, dear, if you could help Arthur find some clothing then you two could pack our gear and erase our traces from this house. I’ll take care of our visitors. Whoever finishes first can see about getting us tickets out of Dodge. Preferably you two on one flight, me on a different one, make us harder to trace in case these three fools aren’t the only ones.”

Ariadne didn’t respond, face pale, staring fixedly at the ground as dark blood seeped across the pale carpet towards her feet.

Arthur nodded in acknowledgement, for once not needling or teasing, just accepting Eames taking control. He shot Eames a quick, hard look, that somehow managed to convey _thank you_ and _I’ll explain later_ and _don’t worry about being trailed, I know exactly who to call and they will be hearing from me very, very soon_. Then he gently placed one arm around Ariadne’s shoulder and steered her towards the bedrooms, somehow managing to look dignified, almost stylish even, wrapped in nothing but a blanket.

Eames could hear Arthur reassuring her as they walked away, voice gentle, tender. “Hey, hey, we’ve got this taken care of. You’re fine, you’re not injured, we’ll take a day or two off, Eames has a place in London, we’ll be safe, and we’ll have you back for your classes in plenty of time.”

Eames smiled fondly, then grit his teeth and turned to his self-assigned task.

\--

Despite being in a bit of a hurry, their escape to the airport required an extra stop at a department store along the way.

Arthur had managed to find clothes that fit by combining some of Ariadne’s and some of Eames’ meager offerings. 

In a manner of speaking. 

If by “fit” one meant “large enough to enclose necessary body parts, yet small enough to stay on without the aid of duct tape” and no more.

As he strode confidently towards the racks of suits, Arthur’s expression dared anyone to comment on the word “PINK” stamped in giant, glittery letters across his ass.

\--

In the end, Eames and Ariadne took the more-or-less direct route to London (via Morocco, but only one stop to throw off possible pursuit was practically a direct flight for them in this scenario).

Arthur took an eastward route.

He arrived in London 23 hours after the other two. Eames greeted him at the apartment door. Arthur’s face was more annoyed than grim, and the bags under his eyes spoke of what must have been non-stop movement since they parted. He was still in the ill-fitting suit, which had gained a new set of wrinkles; Arthur still managed to make it look fabulous.

“It’s done,” Arthur said. And then muttered under his breath, “Fucking Ukrainians. Hold a grudge better than the Russians.”

Eames merely nodded, and flung the door wide. Arthur followed him down the short hallway as he walked and talked.

“Ariadne and I weren’t sure when you might arrive, so we just finished eating, but there’s some leftover Pad See Ew in the fridge you are welcome to if you are hungry. There’s an airbed in the office for you if you are tired, I cleared space among the canvases. Ari has my room of course. We opened a bottle of wine and were just about to start watching-“ he paused at the gentle touch of Arthur’s hand on his shoulder, just outside the living room.

“Eames, I… Thank you. For… um…” Arthur looked like he wanted to say more, face uncertain before shifting into point-man mode. “I’ll set my stuff down, get out of these clothes, and take you up on that Thai. I did manage to sleep a bit on the plane, but you know how airline food is.” 

Eames smiled warmly. “Anytime darling. I’ll heat the food for you, come join us when you’re ready.”

\--

Eames was slightly surprised and rather grateful that Ariadne waited until after Arthur finished eating and they were all in the living room with wine before she pounced. Judging by Arthur’s expression of tolerant affection, he felt the same.

“Okay Arthur. Explanation time. With demonstrations, if you don’t mind. First, how the hell can you turn into a cat outside of a dream, and why has no one ever heard of this before? How does it work? Like, seriously, I’m not 100% sure I’m not still in a dream somewhere.”

Arthur took a large sip of his wine. He eyed the Bordeaux with surprised appreciation.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure how to explain the mechanics of it. I don’t really understand myself. And I’ve only met a few others like me – you have to understand how secretive we have to be, or else we would end up government lab rats somewhere, never to be seen again. So everything I’m going to tell you is my best guess, based on experience.”

“Go on.” Ariadne was practically vibrating with curiosity.

“As near as I can tell, the ability to shift is genetic. Some sort of super-recessive trait. I did meet one person whose grandfather could also shift. But no one in my family, until me. The change is kicked off during puberty, but it took me a long time to figure out what was going on. It was the one time in my life that I was grateful my parents weren’t the most attentive or present, that they were always gone with one thing or another.”

He paused, looking at something in the distance, expression shifting into something sad, something lonely.

“Well that had to be rough,” Eames interjected, “and here I thought it was bad when my voice started changing and I got spots. Not sure what I would have done if all of me had changed and I started growing fur and a tail!”

Arthur shot Eames a brief look of gratitude.

“It was really confusing at first. I tended to shift in my sleep a lot. I started sleeping naked, because I would wake up as a cat most mornings. My mom found me like that one time, but she just muttered something about strays, and left the room again. When she saw me as myself later, she just reminded me of the ‘no pets in the house’ rule and told me to get rid of that animal or she would do it herself.

“Once I figured out how to consciously control the shift, it actually came in quite handy. Most people don’t pay any attention to a stray cat. You can go anywhere, see anything, hear anything. It’s almost as good as being invisible. I don’t do it more often, if only because it’s hard to find clean, discreet places to stash my clothing.”

“But how does it _work_?” Ariadne interjected. “Can you show us again?”

Arthur looked at her. Then he sighed and shrugged. “Sure, why not. You two are the first people to _ever_ know this about me who didn’t die immediately after, so might as well go all out.” 

He stood up and swiftly unbuttoned his shirt. “It’s not impossible to change while still wearing clothes, but I don’t like to get tangled in them.” The shirt and his belt were hung neatly over the back of the couch. “It’s hard to explain, I just kind of think _cat_ and-“

There was the brief, high-pitched whine, and Kitten was stepping delicately out of the puddle of Arthur’s pants on the floor. He hopped up onto the cushions between the two. Now that he was no longer trying to hide, Eames could see Arthur in his precise movements, in his quick, piercing gaze.

Ariadne reached out one hand and tentatively touched the tip of his tail. “Huh. That’s so bizarre.”

Kitte- _Arthur_ nodded. It was uncanny. He hopped back down to the ground, then sat there, staring pointedly at Ariadne.

“Ari, I think he wants to you look away, so that he can shift back,” Eames hinted.

“Oh!” she squeaked, and covered her eyes, blushing slightly.

“The other helpful part I’ve found,” Arthur continued, once he was dressed and reseated on the couch with his drink, “is that my body seems to heal more quickly than other people. Small injuries sometimes disappear completely when I shift. Eames, I think your vet commented on how well I had healed up?”

“Yes, she did,” Eames mused. “Speaking of that, what exactly happened to you, darling, and why didn’t you just shift back to human and find a hospital?”

“I couldn’t.” Arthur stated simply. “The glass shards were blocking me. I don’t understand why, but I can’t shift, either direction, if there is anything foreign embedded in me. I guess it’s a protective mechanism. I mean, when a body rearranges that much, who knows where a solid object like that could end up?” And then he grinned. “It came in quite handy in my teenage years, actually. Strong emotions would sometimes trigger my shift – things like fear or anger, or just being startled. But also, hmm, things like orgasm. Very inconvenient, if you get my drift. I wore an earring for most of high school, until I learned to control it better.”

While Eames lost himself in a vision of young Arthur, dressed in skinny punk jeans and white t-shirt, with floppy hair and a dangling earring, Ariadne continued the interrogation.

“But Eames got the glass out that first day. So why didn’t you change then?”

Arthur gave her a pointed look, although it was a bit blunted by the wine. “Stitches.”

“Mm, it’s a good thing I didn’t have you microchipped like the vet suggested,” Eames chimed in. Arthur nodded. “She also suggested I have you neutered, but I couldn’t bear to do that to a fellow male.”

Arthur frowned at him. Ariadne just giggled.

“Okay, yes, so stiches. But those came out in what, a week or two? So why didn’t you just shift back at that point? We were worried about you!”

“She has a point,” Eames added. “I may call you things like pet, but you have to know I don’t mean them literally.”

Arthur stared at his glass. His ears slowly took on the color of the wine.

“It was… nice, I guess.” He looked up. “I mean, I did change back when we got home from the vet. That’s where I went for a few days. I was calling a few people, checking to see if it was safe. It sounded like if I just lay low for a while, it would all blow over, or at least enough that I could go talk to someone and resolve it. And well, if I had to lay low, there were worse places to be.”

“Mm hmm. And just how long were you planning on ‘laying low’, as you put it? And were you planning on telling me, or was Kitten just going to disappear, never to be seen again?”

Arthur fiddled with the stem of his wine glass.

“I hadn’t decided yet. The longer I stay a cat, the more I start to think like a cat. I mean, I’m still me, but…”

“But you start playing with cat toys and chasing laser pointers,” Eames supplied.

“Exactly. On one hand, my cat body was fuzzing my brain the longer I stayed, and it was getting kind of hard to think like my normal self, to plan like I normally do. And on the other hand, you were saying some… things. And I… didn’t want you to stop. I… well…” Arthur glanced over at Ariadne, clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation was going, and drained his glass.

“I like to think that I would have told you about Kitten, eventually. But I’ve been keeping it a secret for so long, I honestly don’t know. I’m glad it worked out this way, to be honest.”

Arthur yawned, then, one of those full-body yawns that eloquently telegraphed everyone one of his last 30+ hours awake.

Eames stood, and took the empty glass from Arthur’s unresisting fingers.

“That’s enough story time. Off to bed with you, we can always talk more tomorrow. Ari and I have a movie to finish.”

Arthur grinned at him then, one dimple just barely peeking out, and walked off towards the office-cum-bedroom.

Eames allowed himself to hope that someday he might be lucky enough to see those dimples every day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics translate roughly to “…It is you who I want! It is you who I need! You whom I will love always…”
> 
> Okay, show of hands, I’m curious – how many of you saw that coming? I feel like I dropped plenty of obvious hints, but at the same time, I didn’t want to completely give it away. So, did I succeed in finding that balance? Did it make sense?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have been reading along with this as I write it, note that I went back and made a minor change to the last chapter. Nothing that will affect the plot, but I needed to make Arthur a little more gun-safe (he should know better than to just throw loaded weapons on the ground!). Thanks to cosmogyral_mad_woman for pointing that out.

Ariadne was predictably full of questions the next morning. She thoughtfully presented Arthur with a cup of coffee (just the way he liked it; Arthur was sure Eames had something to do with that) before diving in, so he answered her with amused tolerance rather than his usual morning grumpiness.

“Does catnip affect you? Like, when you’re a person, is it like a drug to you?”

“It doesn’t affect me when I’m in human form, no. But man, first time I smelled the stuff as a cat, my brain went haywire. It’s hard to describe. It’s kind of pleasurable, but so intense it’s almost painful. I have a really hard time thinking about anything else until it’s gone.”

Eames smiled, suddenly understanding the watery fate of the catnip mouse he had bought.

“Can you shift partway, like give yourself a cat tail on a human body? Or superhuman night vision and hearing?”

Arthur pondered that one for a minute, and then his face settled into a look of intense concentration for a few seconds before clearing.

“Apparently not. Like I said last night, I don’t know how to explain it, I just have to think ‘cat’ and I shift. But if I think ‘cat boy’ or ‘tail’ nothing happens. It seems to be an all-or-nothing. I’ve also found that I can’t shift in dreams, oddly enough, not that I would ever use that as my totem or anything.”

Ariadne considered that one briefly and then nodded. “That makes sense. If something else was stopping you from shifting, you might think you were in a dream and try to take the quick way up. Or, conversely, you might think you were in a dream and shift to test it out, and give away your secret.”

Eames shuddered at the thought of Arthur accidentally trying to shoot himself out of a dream while awake.

“Exactly,” Arthur replied.

“So how does the whole piercing thing work, exactly?” Eames chimed in, anxious to shift the topic.

“And do you ever wear that earring anymore?” Ariadne added.

Arthur wrinkled his nose. “I know this is the least scientific explanation that I can give you, but the best analogy that I can come up with is that it somehow blocks my chi. And no, no more earring for me. Too visible. Back in college, I decided that I needed something that could be hidden, but have the same effect. ” He looked mischievously over at Eames. “So I got my navel pierced. Just a little stud, easy in and out, you can’t see the scar when it’s not in. I often wear it when I’m not on a job, just to keep the hole open. I contemplated nipple rings, but you can see those too easily under a properly-tailored shirt.”

It was only through supreme effort that Eames managed to not choke on his mouthful of tea. The mental image of young, punk, earringed Arthur rose unbidden before his eyes, only now with the smooth peaks of nipple rings thrusting up under a tight white t-shirt. Arthur smirked at Eames as if he knew exactly what Eames was imagining.

Eames wasn’t sure if it was the wave of desire that swept through him, Arthur’s intense, knowing scrutiny or the hint of a dimple peeking out that had his face flushing with warmth.

\--

During the trip to the airport, Ariadne continued to pepper Arthur with questions while Eames drove. Arthur answered them all easily, with good humor and a tinge of relief, as if glad to finally be able to share his secret.

Their conversation turned to more mundane things as they walked Ariadne to checkin and the security line. Once she disappeared through the wall of agents and x-ray machines, Arthur and Eames turned to each other with matching awkward looks. Arthur’s hands were fisted in his pockets, lending an oddly vulnerable line to his normally confident shoulders. Eames flipped the car key over and around his knuckles like a poker chip.

“What now?” Arthur finally asked.

He looked nervous. 

Eames stared at him, head cocked. 

Arthur, who was normally completely unflappable, even in the face of literal gunfire, looked nervous. Eames had no idea what Arthur could be worried about. After all, he wasn’t the one who just found out that he had been, completely unknowingly, confessing his love to the object of his affections for the past several weeks. Often in exceedingly sappy and embarrassing ways. Compared to that, this whole cat business was not even on the embarrassment scale.

“What now? That depends on you, darling,” Eames eventually replied. “You know how I feel about you, in probably more detail than I would ever have voluntarily told you, so I’m sure you can guess my preferences on the matter. These revelations of yours don’t change that one bit. But I have no idea how you feel in return. If you want, we can go back to exactly the way things were.” He slipped on his best poker face, hoping to hide the sudden roiling in his stomach at the thought that they might go back to cool professionalism with only the occasional job together. 

Whatever Arthur wanted, he would be fine with it, Eames told himself. After all, it wasn’t like Arthur asked for those heartfelt confessions. For all Eames knew, Arthur didn’t want them, wasn’t interested, was just humoring him, was just-

Arthur laughed incredulously. “Eames, how can you be so good at reading the emotions and intentions of other people, and not have noticed this about me? I swear, everyone else knows within the first hour or two of meeting us, I’m that obvious.”

“Obvious? No, love, you do a much better job of hiding yourself than that.” Eames ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, I thought, once or twice, but…I always just chalked it up to wishful thinking.”

Arthur looked at the crowds of people streaming around them, each one with a place to go and a story to tell, people they love and people who love them. Finally he looked back at Eames.

“Can we, I mean, this isn’t the best place for this conversation. Can I come back to yours for bit?”

Eames’ face lit up. 

“Of course, darling. And you may stay for as long as you like.”

\--

(a few weeks later)

“Hey Eames,” Arthur stated offhandedly from his seat on their couch, attention focused on his open laptop as he worked on research for their next job.

“Yeah?” Eames responded absentmindedly, rifling through the papers in his own bag.

“Whatever happened to that cat toy? You know, the fluffy pink one.”

Eames’ fingers stilled. He stared sharply at the back of Arthur’s head.

“I think I gave it to Jeremy next door, for his cats. I figured you weren’t going to use it. Why do you ask?”

Arthur’s voice was calm, nonchalant. “Oh, no reason.” But the faint pink stain on his neck told a different story?

“Do you want me to get you another one, love?” Eames’ voice was tinged with amusement and warmth.

“If you like,” Arthur replied, too casual, eyes fixed firmly on his spreadsheets. “It might be good practice for keeping my reflexes sharp in my other form.”

Eames smiled and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “As you wish, kitten.”

\--

(several months later)

Despite his often-nomadic life, or perhaps because of it, Eames loved coming home. That sense of settling in, like a puzzle piece snapping into place, that sense of belonging. He loved it even more now, now that his definition of “home” had expanded to include Arthur. There was nothing like coming _home_ after an intense job, home to familiar walls and warm smiles, to perfect companionship that knew when to laugh and love but also when to be silent and soft.

It had been a long, cold, miserable job. Two weeks had turned into two months, had turned into three, before they finally managed to break through the multiple layers of the mark’s security.

As if to welcome them home, London was lit in a rare spell of sunshine, blue skies a contrast to the searing grey they had left behind.

Arthur walked through the door first, setting his bags down just inside. Then he let out a deep sigh, and his entire body relaxed. He strolled across the main room and flung aside the curtains, letting the sunlight in to cut across the dust motes dancing in his wake. Arthur rested one hand on the window frame, leaning slightly as he drank in the welcoming sights of their neighborhood.

“Wait. Stay right there.”

As Arthur started to straighten up, Eames stopped him with his voice. He could see the lines of tension return to his lover’s shoulders, but Arthur stayed put, unmoving, trusting.

"Nothing dangerous, love, I just-“ Eames scrubbed his hands through his hair. It had gotten kind of shaggy over the last couple months. 

“You are stunning, just like that. Can I paint you?”

Arthur relaxed again. He stayed put, but turned his head enough to catch Eames’ eye, a little confused, more than a little affectionate.

“Like this? I wasn’t even looking at you.”

“Exactly like that. You’ll understand when you see it.”

Arthur turned his gaze back to the window as he considered. Eames took the opportunity to drink in the sight. 

Arthur was still dressed for work, in a crisp grey suit and white shirt, somehow only slightly creased even after hours on a plane. The warm sunlight haloed the wool and silk in gleaming silver, reminiscent of soft fur. The white cuff of his sleeves, a perfect inch peeking out, like delicate white paws. He was standing with one arm still raised, hand on the side of the window frame, the other tucked into his pocket. He was leaning slightly, his right foot crossed over the other at the ankle. 

Eames was reminded of so many months ago, when a little grey Kitten reappeared in his life. Arthur’s curves were more subtle but no less elegant. His suit against the wood formed the same contrast of gold on silver in the light. 

“I suppose, if you want to,” Arthur finally acquiesced. Eames could hear the pleasure mingled with embarrassment. “Can we maybe unpack first? Get a bit of sleep?”

Eames was already casting around for a paper, a pencil, anything.

“Of course, of course, just… let me sketch this real quick, make sure I have the composition down at least, it will just take me a minute.”

And although Arthur may have complained over the few weeks, about his arm falling asleep and his feet getting sore from standing for so long, Eames could tell that he loved every minute of the attention.

Before signing the painting as finished, Eames dug out the canvas with his portrait of Kitten, and the two men stared at them side by side. In each, the window and walls were the same, the angle of the sunlight on the floor was the same. The loving attention to detail the same, every thread and hair rendered exquisitely.

The only difference was the subjects, man and cat. (And a trail of reddish pawprints tracked across the floor in the shadows behind Arthur.)

“These are incredible. You are incredible.” Arthur turned to press a gentle kiss against Eames’ jawline. 

Eames turned to meet him. “I was inspired by an incredible subject,” he grinned. “So, you approve?”

“I do,” Arthur affirmed.

Eames leaned down and picked up his smallest brush. He signed the bottom corner with a flourish, something shaped vaguely like a big, looping “E” followed by a wavy scribble.

“Now, want to come help me figure out where in the bedroom to hang them?” Eames asked with a suggestive eyebrow waggle, offering Arthur his hand.

Arthur laughed, and allowed himself to be lead back to the bedroom.

(No paintings were hung that night. Eventually the portrait of Kitten ended up in the living room. The one of Arthur ended up in their bedroom. Eames claimed it was “too sensual for the visiting public”. Arthur disagreed. Eames eventually persuaded him using some rather, shall we say, nontraditional negotiating techniques.)

\--

These days, Eames sometimes wakes gasping to Arthur swallowing him down, mischief dancing in his eyes. Other times he wakes more gently, fur and whiskers tickling various spots of bare skin.

Sometimes he falls asleep to a soundtrack of contented purring, and other times to Arthur’s slim frame pressed up against his back, one arm twined around his waist.

(Arthur, Eames quickly noticed, sleeps nude. Eames highly approves of this. He quickly adopted the practice himself.)

Arthur spends a fair amount of his free time as Kitten, but Eames doesn’t mind that. He actually enjoys it. It doesn’t hurt that Arthur seems happier, more relaxed, when he can be himself, all of himself. 

Eames tries not to think about all the ways that life could have gone differently; in virtually every other scenario he would have lost Kitten, or Arthur, or both.

And if it’s all a little unconventional, well, life could be a lot worse.

In fact, Eames doesn’t know how life could get any better than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I can’t believe we’re at an end! I went back and forth quite a bit, wrestled with whether to keep going after all the encouraging comments, but ultimately decided that this would be a nice clean place to end, at the end of this arc. So, a big THANK YOU to all who have been reading and commenting on my little story. I seriously wouldn’t have finished this without you. I have enjoyed writing this so much, and I’m looking forward to writing more sequels in this ‘verse.


End file.
